Gender workplace segregation, also known as occupational sex segregation, refers to the phenomenon where men and women tend to work in different industries, occupations, or roles within the same industry. This document discusses explanations for occupational sex segregation, such as socialization influencing traditional career choices for men and women. It also discusses consequences, such as women earning less pay on average and facing barriers to promotion. The document proposes alternatives to address gender workplace segregation, such as expanding anti-discrimination laws, desegregating jobs, and addressing the fact that women are often primary caregivers through policies like paid family leave.

1. GENDERED
WORKPLACES
Explanations, consequences, and alternatives

2. Defined
Gender workplace segregation

3. occupational sex segregation
Also known as
gendered workplace
segregation
phenomenon where men and women are segregated at work
o sometimes because we are in different industries (men in
construction, women in nursing or teaching)
o sometimes because we are physically separated – different offices or
departments (women wait-staff, men in kitchen)
o sometimes because even in same industry (law) women and men
perform different jobs in that industry (female paralegal v. male
lawyer/judge)

4. Men’s and women’s work wasn’t always separate in the way it is now.
Before the industrial revolution (late 19C), while men and women did different
work, but there wasn’t the profound difference that we see now in terms of both
where the work happened and how it is valued. For the most part, both men
and women worked from home, and families’ work (men, women, and children)
was interdependent and valued fairly equally.
With the Industrial revolution men begin to work outside the home for wages
and women’s work inside the home comes to be defined as not real work.
Some women did work outside the home (factories/mill girls) but for lower
wages based on the assumption that the man was the head of household and
while women could supplement a family’s income, women had fathers or
husbands to depend on.
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION

5. 4 Ways To Measure Segregation
1) Popularity
2) Density or Proportion
3) Clustering
4) Index of Dissimilarity
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION

6. 2) Popularity
of all jobs, which have the most women?
Which have the most men?
Look at the BLS handout and identify which jobs are the 10 most
popular jobs for women. Which are the 10 most popular jobs for
men?
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION4 Ways To Measure Segregation

7. 2) Density or Proportion
of males/females in a given occupation.
looks at density in a field. What percent/proportion of
the workers in a given occupation are women or men.
This determines whether an occupation is male or
fema % or more are one gender.
From the BLS handout, can you identify a male dominated field? A
female dominated field?
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION4 Ways To Measure Segregation

8. pink collar jobs – service jobs; so named because they are often
associate with women – (who wear girly pink blouses )
white collar jobs – office, professional jobs; so named because they
are associated with men who wear white dress shirts (and often suits)
with collars
blue collar jobs – working class, manual labor; so named because they
are associated with men who wear uniforms or other durable
dark/denim wear
OCCUPATIONAL SEX SEGREGATION

9. 3) Clustering
Extent to which male/females are clustered in sex
dominated occupations. Looks at which are the most
common occupations for women in relation to
saturation/density. E.g. 33% of women workers are
clustered in just 10 occupations. 25% of men are
employed in 10 most common male jobs.
Can you identify examples of clustering?
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION4 Ways To Measure Segregation

10. 4) Index of Dissimilarity
looks at percentage of women and men who would need to change
occupations for women and men to have equal distribution in all
occupation; 0 = total integration, 100 = total segregation. this looks at
all workers and all occupations together – not just particular
occupations or one gender at a time.
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION4 Ways To Measure Segregation

11. 4) Index of Dissimilarity
In 1970 the IoD was .57 or 57%
In 1990 the IoD was .53 or 53%
In 2009 the IoD was .47 or 47% meaning that 47% of women
and men would have to change occupations in order to have
equal distribution.
Race integration is 2x as much as sex integration
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION4 Ways To Measure Segregation

12. Sticky Floor
Typically, women’s occupations often have fewer
opportunities for advancement (sticky floor). And
where there are opportunities for advancement,
women lack the opportunities to gain the skills or
experience needed to advance
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION

13. Glass Ceiling
Unseen or invisible barriers that prevent women
from reaching the highest levels in a workplace.
Imagine that, because the ceiling is glass, you can’t see it, but you can
see everything happening above you; Yet you just can’t break through
the ceiling.
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION

14. Glass Escalator
subtle mechanisms in place to enhance men’s
positions in women’s professions
while women commonly attempt to move into male
professions, men are less likely to move into women’s
professions. And when they do, they are paid more and
have easier pathways to advancement.
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION

15. Glass Escalator
Men experience:
warm welcome from male supervisors and from
women colleagues (because men in field raise pay
and prestige)
gendered racism – racist stereotypes grounded in
gendered ideas (dangerous black male) affects glass
escalator for men of color
Sometimes unwelcome pressure to advance too
quickly or at all
OCCUPATIONAL SEX
SEGREGATION

16. EXPLANATIONS
Gender workplace segregation

17. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
legal prohibitions to occupations or to training for
occupations
This is much less common since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but it
still occurs formally or informally not anymore. e.g. women have
been barred from combat in the military
Illegal discrimination – women illegally barred from
jobs or not hired or promoted because of gender

18. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
cultural/social customs: until early 1960s help-
wanted/classifieds/job postings were separated by
gender (women’s jobs and men’s jobs and sometimes same job
would be listed in both places, but with higher pay on men’s
side).
Workplaces such as tobacco plants separated
workers were by race and gender. The article
“Boundary Lines” describes restaurant work
segregated by race and to some extent gender.

19. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
sex role spillover (sex typing): workers tend to be
hired (and promoted) for jobs where we perceive
compatibility between gender roles and job
requirement. we see jobs as masculine, feminine, or
neutral and hire accordingly.
how we see these jobs is cultural and changes over
time e.g. factory work in the US is men’s work and in
the developing world, this is work for young women.
women and men have difficulty breaking into non-
traditional jobs

20. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
stereotype or prejudice: women are 27% of all lawyers
and today more women than men graduate law school, yet in a
survey of 200 male and female lawyers, not a single respondent
(male or female) said they would choose an equally qualified
female attorney over a male attorney when considering who
would command more respect in court; this effects not just an
individual client, but who firms hire, who they assign on which
cases, and who they promote

21. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
evaluations: Women and men evaluated differently.
workers (both male and female) receive better evaluations in
occupations where they dominate. Where workers make up less
than 15% of the profession, they are more likely to receive worse
evaluations than the other gender.
Behavior that is rewarded in men is penalized in women. In other
words, women who act like men are penalized; men rarely act
like women because there’s no reward in it

22. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
socialization: shapes job choice i.e. women and
men gravitate toward traditional female and male jobs.
Girls are more likely to grow up wanting to be a nurse or a
teacher than a police officer or a construction worker. Boys are
more likely to grow up wanting to be a firefighter than a nurse.
These choices are influenced by sex-typing and by
presence/absence of role models

23. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
job transformation: jobs gradually or not so
gradually switch over from one gender to another,
often because of a shortage of male workers or
because men leave a job as prestige or pay lowers;
e.g. in the 1800s, men dominated as clerical workers
and teachers

24. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
human capital: women gravitate toward jobs that
allow them to manage family responsibilities: jobs
with flexible schedules, little investment in training,
and skills that don’t depreciate (don’t need to be
updated/refreshed) if they drop out of the workforce.
doesn’t account for why women don’t end up in blue collar jobs that fit
this criteria.
most low-skill female jobs don’t actually make it easier to combine
families & work.
this assumes that women have families and are primary family
caregivers and that they plan jobs/careers around family

25. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
structural theory: the characteristics of the jobs shape
the behavior of the employees; women dominated jobs that
are monotonous with poor benefits, low wages, and little
autonomy lead to high turnover because women are not
invested or challenged. The same can be said for male
dominated jobs. So, bad jobs make people lack ambition,
suck the life/drive out of us, and discourage us from
moving into other kinds of jobs or higher levels.
doesn’t account for why we choose those jobs in the first place –
only how we end up trapped (on the sticky floor).

26. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
informal networking: often is same sex which
means that referrals and recommendations are likely
to be for/from people of same sex (and race). this is
also how people find out about job openings and
promotions. and women are disadvantaged because
our networks are low paid/low prestige women’s jobs
or because women lack the upper echelons of power
(the old boy’s network)

27. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
EXPLANATIONS
Apprenticeships or Internships: often these have age
limits that work against women who enter work force later, or
require investments of time that may be difficult for women with
family responsibilities. They bar women from opportunities to
develop skills or log in the experience time needed for
promotions or better job shifts
 many union jobs, which tend to be high-paying with benefits
require apprenticeships.
 Increasingly, white collar opportunities, require (unpaid or
low-paid) internships which are especially hard for working
class women.

28. CONSEQUENCES
Gender workplace segregation

29. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
PAY (and BENEFITS):
gender wage gap: on average, women earn 82% of what
men earn.
mother wage gap; The pay gap between mothers and
non-mothers (under 35) is greater than between women
and men.
lower social security and other retirement benefits. in
addition to losing out because women spend less time in
work, women also suffer because women are paid less
thus will have less to draw on in retirement. also women
are less likely than men to work in occupations where they
have private pensions

30. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
PROMOTION:
women with families may have hindered availability
and mobility which may in turn, hinder ability to take
advantage of – or be considered for promotions

31. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
PRESTIGE:
women remain in low positions with less prestige (and
remain unable to help each other advance through
informal networks)

32. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
Part Time Inequity
Because of family responsibility, women are more
likely to work part-time where they are less likely than
full-time workers to receive benefits or pay equity
(26% of women workers work part-time. part-time
workers get 40% less per hour than full time workers
 full timer: $10/hour or $400 for a 40 hour week
 part timer: not $10/hour or $200 week for a 20 hour week
instead: $6/hour or $120 week

33. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
Division Of Home Labor
because of men can expect to be paid more, families
choose for husbands to be primary earners which can
lead to overworked husbands and economically
dependent wives

34. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
maintains stereotypes about women’s and
men’s abilities
sexual harassment is more common in
occupations where women are minorities

35. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
Boundary Heightening
when women make up 15% or less, workers
exert overt or not so overt measures to keep
or drive them out. e.g. more masculine
activities – events at bars, strip clubs, sporting
events; not inviting women; or scheduling
events at times when women need to care for
children.

36. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
Sexual Harassment
occurs when submission to or rejection of
sexual advances is a term of employment, is
used as a basis for employment decisions like
hiring, pay, or advancement. Two kinds: quid
pro quo, and hostile environment

37. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
Sexual Harassment – Quid Pro Quo
Refers to some exchange of one thing for another
When some advantageous treatment (hiring,
promotion, etc.) promised or withheld or some
negative treatment (firing, bad shifts, etc.) is
threatened in return for the acceptance or rejection of
sexual advances

38. GENDERED WORKPLACE –
CONSEQUENCES
Sexual Harassment – Hostile Environment
When an employer fosters (or an employee
experiences) an environment that is threatening,
offensive, intimidating, or oppressive.

39. ALTERNATIVES
Gender workplace segregation

40. GENDERED WORKPLACE
ALTERNATIVES
 expand anti discrimination laws not jut women but also
parents.
 desegregate work – recruit women to men’s jobs and vice
versa
 equity for part time work in terms of both pay and benefits
 raise minimum wage. make jobs worth the cost of childcare.
 provide childcare and early childhood education

41. GENDERED WORKPLACE
ALTERNATIVES
Address care – especially the fact that women are primary
caregivers in families
 paid family leave (FMLA 1993 = unpaid 12 weeks)
 imagine more flexibility in work schedules beyond Monday –
Friday, 9-5 (but still 40 hours)
 Sweden allows a 30 hour work week until children are 6 and
government picks up salary slack.
 parent benefits akin to veteran’s benefits (special preferences
for government jobs, education benefits, medical benefits for
parents)

42. GENDERED WORKPLACE
ALTERNATIVES
address the culture of overwork – extend overtime pay to exempt
(managerial workers)
flex time – for all workers not just parents. flex time for all
workers removes the setup of regular – normal work week and
deviant – abnormal – irregular work week for others. and stigma
attached which has repercussions for advancement and
evaluation (J.L.’s favorite option)
approach work as if all workers (male and female) have a dual
life – work and families; or as if we have personal lives outside of
work (however we use our time - with family or without family
(charity, activist work, leisure, personal development, …)

43. Intersectionality
Gendered Work and Race

44. Body labor
body-related services and the management
of feelings that accompanies it
Work in the nail salon is an example of body-work. This might also
include work in hair salons or spas.

45. Emotional labor
the emotional requirements of a job. This
includes managing feelings (ones own and
those of employers/clients)

46. Transnational Motherhood
Describes immigrant women (usually Latina
immigrant women) who do domestic work in
the US –often caring for other people’s
children—while their own children remain in
their countries of origin.