Doctoral Dissertation Research: Gender Segregation and Integration in Select Professions

尽管女性在美国劳动力市场上取得了进步，但研究继续发现，职业中的性别隔离，甚至在劳动力构成中性别更加平衡的职业中也是如此。虽然有人提出了类似的解释来理解职业内的性别隔离，但很少有人评估这些解释中哪一种最能解释性别隔离，以及主要解释是否因职业背景而异。本研究比较了医学、法律和教学领域的性别隔离，并提出以下问题：1)在医生、律师和教师的职业生涯中出现了哪些性别差异？2)在这三个案例中，“性别重要时”是否有所不同？对已经完成的综合职业历史数据的量化分析显示，在这三个职业群体的职业过程中，性别隔离出现在不同的时间点--这表明，推动性别隔离的力量是特定于职业的。为了确定具体的机制，本项目对这三个职业的在校学生和从业者进行了60次访谈的定性分析。该项目旨在提取职业生涯不同阶段决策过程中的细微差别，以及性别因素在三种职业背景下如何纳入职业决策的差异。通过将分析层面转移到职业层面，本研究提供了对驱动性别差异的机制的特殊性的洞察，并鼓励研究人员考虑可能促进和描绘性别不平等出现的职业因素。更广泛的影响这项研究的结果对基于性别的政策有影响，因为确定性别隔离的出现可以指导和加强促进性别公平和多样性的努力。由于性别隔离的原因可能因职业环境不同而不同，提高女性在男性占主导地位的领域的代表性的努力将受益于对特定职业中性别不平等的观察，而不是基于对性别失衡的常见解释的猜测。随着公众对性别多样性的认识和需求的增加，这项研究有助于更好地了解性别不平等的原因，并为制定性别政策奠定更坚实的基础。

SES-1002613David B. GruskyManwai C. KuStanford UniversityDespite women's advances in the labor market in the U.S., studies continue to find gender segregation within occupations, even in professions that have become more gender-balanced in their workforce compositions. While similar explanations have been proposed to understand within-occupation gender segregation, few have assessed which of these explanations best explains gender segregation, and whether the predominant explanation varies from one occupational context to another. This dissertation research compares gender segregation across the contexts of medicine, law and teaching, and asks: 1) What do gender differences emerge in the careers of doctors, lawyers and teachers? And 2) Does 'when gender matters' differ across these three cases? Quantitative analysis of synthesized career history data, already completed, reveals that gender segregation emerges at different points in the career process across these three occupational groups - suggesting that the forces that drive gender segregation are occupation-specific. To identify the particular mechanisms, this project undertakes qualitative analysis of sixty interviews with current students and practitioners in the three professions. This project aims to extract the nuances in decision-making processes at different stages of the career, as well as differences in how gender figures into career decisions across the three occupational contexts. By moving the level of analysis to the occupational level, this study offers insights into the specificity of the mechanisms that drive gender differences, and encourages researchers to consider the occupational factors that may foster and delineate the emergence of gender inequality. Broader ImpactsFindings from this study have implications for gender-based policies, as the identification of the emergence of gender segregation can direct and enhance efforts to promote gender equity and diversity. As the causes of gender segregation may differ by occupational context, efforts to raise women?s representation in male-dominated fields would benefit from observations about gender inequality within the specific occupation, more so than conjectures based on common explanations for gender imbalances. As public awareness of and demands for gender diversity increase, this research can contribute to a stronger understanding of the causes of gender inequality, as well as a stronger basis on which gender policies can be made.