...service clerical occupations. (See table 1.) Other occupations, such as managerial, professional and technical, and sales appear to be distributed almost evenly by gender. For women, the most popular occupations are clerical (a traditionally female-dominated occupation) and professional and technical; for men, the most popular occupations are production and craft, professional and technical, and managerial. Table 1 also presents a well-known measure of the disparity in occupational distributions: the Index of Dissimilarity (ID). This index, based on the absolute deviation in the percentages of men and women across occupations, is defined as

(1) ID = 1/2 [J.summation over (j=1)][absolute value of [P.sup.M.sub.j] - [P.sup.W.sub.j]]

where [P.sup.MW.sup.j] measures the percentage of men (M) or women (W) in occupational category j. The ID ranges from to 100, with its numerical value indicating the percentage of men, women, or some combination of the two that need to shift occupations in order for the two distributions to equalize. An ID of means equal occupational representation by gender, whereas a value of 100 denotes complete gender segregation across occupations. Thus, the data in table 1 indicate that, in 2001, 31 percent of men or women (or a combination of percentages that adds up to 31 percent) would have to change occupations for there to be complete gender equality in occupational distributions. This percentage is consistent with other estimates of occupational employment patterns reported from a variety of labor market data. (1)

Although the occupational differences reported in table 1 are well known, researchers continue to investigate whether these employment disparities result from gender differences in occupational choice, from differences in characteristics, or from market distortions such as occupational segregation. Occupational segregation occurs when workers are excluded from certain jobs, and overrepresented in others, for reasons such as race, gender, or national origin. Since the early 1960s, researchers have been interested in the measurement and consequences of occupational segregation in the labor market. Recent empirical work has employed discrete-choice, qualitative-response models of occupational attainment to investigate differences in occupational structures across groups of workers. These qualitative-response models of occupational attainment were developed initially to predict the likelihood that workers are employed in a specified occupational category, given their individual traits. (2) The occupational segregation literature has adapted the models to determine whether, after controlling for differences in characteristics such as human capital variables, certain workers face unequal prospects for occupational achievement)

This article assesses recent occupational distributions of prime-working-age ("prime-age") men and women in the U.S. labor market. The objective is to determine the extent of gender differences in occupations that are due to discrimination-based segregation, or due to other factors such as differences in human capital characteristics and labor market choices.

Empirical model

Occupational attainment refers to the net outcome of the processes that ultimately...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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