Ch. 8 – Gender, Employment,
and the Economy
Robert Wonser
Economy and Labor Force
• Economy - system of managing its resources,
both human and material.
• Human resources of the economy constitute the
labor force.
• Work is both social as well as economic.
• The social organization of work is hierarchical.
• Work (as in “man’s work” and “women’s work”) is
culturally proscribed not related entirely to actual
abilities.
U.S. Working Women and Men in
Historical Perspective
• One of the most important changes: U.S. economy shifted from
being predominantly agricultural to becoming industrial
predominantly manufacturing (i.e. factory work).
• Men worked in greater numbers than women.
• Dominant middle-class ideology: ‘true’ women stayed at home and
supposedly did not work.
• However, women in poor and working-class families, women rearing
children alone, women of color, and immigrant women—few could
afford to stay at home.
• 1800: 5% of women worked outside of the home, 1900: 30% in large
cities.
• Manufacturing jobs: White women predominantly.
• Women of color were more likely to be in the paid labor force but for
less money and in agricultural work, domestic work, and laundry
work.
And then came WWII …
• The U.S. economy reversed itself during WWII.
• Wartime production boom created jobs for millions of
women.
• Women worked in record numbers but also held jobs
previously only held by men. Ex: welding, riveting, ship
fitting and tool making.
• Government recruited women to work by appealing to
patriotism and with incentives (e.g. urging employers to
pay women the same as men, public day care centers).
• War ended: women laid off to make room for the
returning men.
• Federal war programs then urged women to return to
their “normal” roles as wives and mothers at home, oh
and they canceled the war programs (ones listed above).
Ahh, quaint old propaganda!
• Notice how
the
employment
rate for women
never quite
returned the
prewar levels?
• Also note the
drastic
increase from
1965 and
beyond.
Increased Employment for Women
• Some women did quit their jobs and birth rates soared
• As much as 80% of women who did quit wish they’d kept
their jobs.
• Many stayed employed but downgraded (in pay and
status) to traditional women’s labor.
• 1965: women’s life expectancy increased and their
fertility rate decreased compare with earlier generations
(in in Baby boom years!).
•  fewer years spent raising children, greater freedom to
pursue paid labor.
• Rising divorce rate also affected women's employment.
Sex Segregation in the Workplace
• Occupational Sex Segregation refers to the degree to
which men and women are concentrated in occupations
in which workers of one sex predominate.
• A commonly used measure of sex segregation is the
dissimilarity index, also called the sex segregation
index and sometimes D.
• Its value is reported as a percentage that tells us the
proportion of workers of one sex that would have to
change to jobs in which members of their sex are
underrepresented in order for the occupational
distribution between the sexes to be fully balanced.
• For the U.S., 38%
of the female labor
force would have to
change jobs in order
to equalize their
representation
across occupations.
• D has declined
steadily since 1970.
•Weakness of D:
depends on
occupational
classifications.
• also masks
industry-wide and
establishment sex
discrimination.
• Worth noting about the previous chart:
• Small numbers have entered sex atypical positions but
many more men and women have entered sex-typical
jobs.
•  the increase in labor force participation has somewhat
offset the decrease in occupational sex segregation.
• Thus, women’s chances of sharing the same job as a
man has declined and evidence indicates that workers
who hold sex atypical jobs leave them at a
disproportionate rate.
• Bottom line: there have been steady improvements but
occupational sex segregation remains a feature of the
U.S. labor market as well as labor markets throughout
most of the word. Precise reads are complicated by:
• 1) # of women in some occupations has been so low that
it doubling, tripling or tenfold increasing does not mean
that large numbers of women now hold these jobs or that
they are no longer male-dominated.
• 2) in recent years, several female-dominated
occupations grew even more females dominated (e.g.
book keepers).
Occupational Sex Segregation
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Is also complicated by other factors:
– Age (younger  lower dissimilarity)
– Education (women's level of education is negatively correlated with level
of occupational sex segregation).
– Race and ethnicity (a good deal of occupational shifting among minority
women workers in recent years has been from one female-dominated
job to another).
• Even minority men haven’t fared too well. Race may be a tougher
barrier than sex.
– Occupational resegregation sex-integrated occupations become
resegregated with members of one sex replaced by members of the
opposite sex as the predominate workers. May cause men to leave a
profession because they see it as declining in skill, prestige and salary.
Ex: bank-telling.
– Industry sex segregation occurs when women and men hold the same
job title in a particular field or industry but actually perform different jobs.
(Ex: baking and coal mining).
– Establishment sex segregation occurs when women and men hold
the same job title at an individual establishment or company, but
actually do different jobs. (Ex: law firms; men – corporate and
commercial law and women: family law).
Consequences of Occupational
Sex Segregation
• One serious one: limits employment opportunities (of
both sexes).
• tokenism the marginal status of a category of workers
who are relatively few numbers in the workplace.
According to Kanter, tokens are “often treated as
representatives of their category, as symbols rather than
as individuals.”
– Tokens are more closely scrutinized  puts pressure and stress.
– Tokens also experience boundary heightening where dominant
workers tend to exaggerate the differences between themselves
and the tokens and to treat them as outsiders.
• Although men and women in sex-atypical jobs encounter
discrimination, its forms and consequences differ
significantly depending upon the job holder’s sex.
Glass Things that hinder or help
• Glass ceiling refers to the invisible barriers that
limit workers’—typically women workers’ and
racial and ethnic minority workers’—upward
occupational mobility.
• men in sex-atypical occupations often receive
preferential treatment in hiring and, instead of
encountering a glass ceiling, ride a glass
escalator up the hierarchy of these professions.
• Men in female dominated positions feel “in
control”
• women in male dominated positions feel
intimidated and controlled.
Sexual Harassment in the
Workplace
• Men rarely experience it, 42 – 88% of
women workers experience sexual
harassment at some point in their work
lives.
• Consequences are serious and harmful
• Most women still do not make official
complaints.
• Serious consequence of sex segregation.
The Male/Female Earnings Gap
• 1960-1990: Women earned 59-70% of
what male workers earned
• 2001: gender gap – 76%
• Higher the job status and pay—and therefore the higher the
educational requirements to fill it—the greater the disparity in wages
between African Americans and White men who held the same
positions.
• Education matters less than race and ethnicity in affecting the
wages of female workers as well.
• Overall, women who have dropped out of HS earn 40% as much as
women who have graduated from college.
• Research shows that female (but not male) employees who have
children pay a motherhood wage penalty of 5-13%.
• One study (2001) found a wage penalty of 7%, when controlled for
the lack of experience due to time out for child care: 5% wage
penalty per child.
• Recent stats indicate: minorities and women are more likely than
Whites and men to be hired as contingent workers, temp
employees, on-call workers and day laborers.
• Women more likely than men to be employed in minimum wage jobs
than in salaried occupations. Men hourly wage: $10.31 (in 1999),
women's: $8.64
The Earnings Gap, Poverty, and
Welfare Policy
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10.5% of the White pop is officially poor
12.5% of the Asian pop is officially poor
26.1% of the Black pop is officially poor
25.6% of the Latino pop is officially poor
31.2% of the Native American pop – poor
Race and ethnicity have a greater impact on unemployment that sex
does.
Ehrenreich’s study
“near poor” having an income 125% of the poverty threshold.
Working mothers fare financially worse than mothers on welfare. Work
garnered 42% more pay but the expenses ate away this increase in
pay. 40% in this study lacked health insurance.
Can you live quite well off welfare benefits? Not so much….
Welfare and food stamps only provide about 2/3 needed each month
Only 7% of welfare recipient’s income is spent on unnecessary items
• % of single mothers in the labor force
(71.5%) is now higher than the % of
married mothers in the labor force (68%).
• Welfare reforms? Reduced # of people on
welfare from 12.2 million in 1996 to 5.3
million in 2002. Where did they go?
Explaining the Wage Gap
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Female dominated occupations usually pay less than male dominated
occupations.
Women choose to invest less than men in employment outside the home, so
they get less in return – human capital theory
Major weakness in HCT? Fails to distinguish between self-imposed job
restrictions and structurally imposed ones.
– Are non-employed mothers who cannot find affordable and reliable child
care really making a “free choice” to stay out of the labor market?
Studies indicate: 5 out of 6 3omen would enter the labor force if they could
find adequate child care
Majority of women with children DO work outside the home
Women value the same job rewards as men: good pay, autonomy, prestige,
and promotions.
Choice to take male-dominated jobs? Constrained by its availability refers to
not only a job opening, but the chance of being hired for the job, feeling
welcome in the job, and succeeding in the job.
What message does lack of women in a job send to other women?
Greater the power of male workers in the workplace—the lower the presence
of women in the occupation.
Evidence does not support human capital theory.
Gender and Homelessness
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Homeless are diverse
Most are NOT severely mentally disturbed, nor do they have drug or alcohol
problems.
All in common? Abject poverty
Groups usually poor are also more likely to be homeless
46% - African Americans, 12% Hispanic Americans, 5% Native Americans
Fastest growing segment of homeless pop: young families with children
2 or 3 kids, average child: 6, average parent: 27.
Vast majority homeless families: women with children.
Reasons: rising housing costs, shortage of low-income housing, inability to
find adequate paying job leaving abusive husband/father.
Homelessness also breaks up families when they're forced to stay in
separate shelters.
1970s: deinstitutionalization movement increased the homeless ranks
Street life is more difficult for women.
The Intersection of Home and the
Work World
• Work done ion the home by women is not paid and not
considered “real work” because of that fact.
• Women’s jobs in the labor force are often an extension of
their work at home.
• Women’s work is devalued and remunerated at a
substantially lower rate than men’s work.
• 2nd shift
• Child care is a major obstacle for working women.
• Stereotypes against female workers: physically and
emotionally incapable of performing certain jobs 
justifies discrimination
The Intersection of Home and the
Work World (cont)
• Legislation such as Title VII, Executive
Order 11246 and the Equal Pay Act is
designed to protect workers of both sexes
and racial and ethnic minorities from
discriminatory employment practices.
• Although they don’t equalize job
opportunities or salaries, when enforced,
they lessen inequalities.