Computing occupational segregation indices with standard errors: an ado file application with an illustration for Colombia

Demography, 2013

This paper presents an algorithm based on the bootstrap to select an admissible aggregation level, that is, the minimum number of occupational categories which yield a gender segregation value which is not significantly smaller than that obtained from the large number of occupational categories usually available in any data set. The approach is illustrated using Labor Force Survey data for Spain for the comparison of gender segregation in 1977 and 1992, as well as 1994 and 2000. To measure gender segregation, an additively decomposable segregation index based in the entropy concept is used. Despite a substantial simplification in the size of the occupation’s space, the decrease in the segregation index is very small and not significant, regardless of the year. Consequently, intertemporal changes in gender segregation can be studied using a greatly reduced classification of occupations that permits an easier interpretation of results.

In this article, we study the effects of ethnicity and gender on occupational segregation. Traditionally, researchers have examined the two sources of segregation separately. In contrast, we measure their joint effect by applying a multigroup segregation index—the Mutual Information or M index—to the product of the seven ethnic groups and two genders distinguished in our 2001 Census data for England and Wales. We exploit M’s additive decomposability property to pose the following two questions: (i) Is there an interaction effect? (ii) How much does each source contribute to occupational segregation, controlling for the effect of the other? Although the role of ethnicity is non-negligible in the areas where minorities are concentrated, our findings confirm the greater importance of gender over ethnicity as a source of segregation. Moreover, we find a small ‘‘dwindling’’ interaction effect between the two sources of

Demography, 2012

In this article, we develop a gender-specific crosswalk based on dualcoded Current Population Survey data to bridge the change in the census occupational coding system that occurred in 2000 and use it to provide the first analysis of the trends in occupational segregation by sex for the 1970-2009 period based on a consistent set of occupational codes and data sources. We show that our gender-specific crosswalk more accurately captures the trends in occupational segregation that are masked using the aggregate crosswalk (based on combined male and female employment) provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. Using the 2000 occupational codes, we find that segregation by sex declined substantially over the period but at a diminished pace over the decades, falling by only 1.1 percentage points (on a decadal basis) in the 2000s. A primary mechanism by which segregation was reduced was through the entry of new cohorts of women, presumably better prepared than their predecessors and/or encountering less labor market discrimination; during the 1970s and 1980s, however, occupational segregation also decreased within cohorts. Reductions in segregation were correlated with education, with the largest decrease among college graduates and very little change in segregation among high school dropouts.

This report presents a new way of investigating gender segregation by occupation. The analyses show that the nature of the occupation itself is important, above and beyond whether an occupation is male-dominated, female-dominated or mixed and above and beyond whether an occupation is blue-collar or white-collar.

Monthly Lab. Rev., 2007

2003

This paper offers a framework to study the gender segregation induced, not only by occupational choices among the employed population, but also by human capital characteristics and labor market participation decisions in the population consisting of non-students of working age. For that purpose, an additively decomposable gender segregation index related to the entropy notion in information theory is used. The approach is illustrated with Labor Force Survey data for Spain in 1977 and 1992. It is found that gender differences in labor market participation behavior is the most important source generating gender segregation in a given moment in time and the reduction in overall gender segregation during this period.

SERIE DE DOCUMENTOS EN ECONOMÍA Y …, 2010

Downloadable! This paper assesses the effects of occupational segregation on the gender wage gap in urban Colombia between 1986 and 2000. The empirical methodology involves a two-step procedure whereby the occupational distributions of workers by gender are modelled ...

Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 2021

Labor force participation rate (LFPR) is the proportion of the employed and those looking for employment, among the working-age group (those between 15 and 64 years), of the total working-age population of a country. It provides a measure of the labor supply of a country, available for the production of goods and services for a wage. It only includes labor that is being, or seeking to be, exchanged for a wage and excludes any labor that might have use value but is not remunerated in pecuniary terms (ILO n.d.). Female labor force participation or women's labor market participation, following from the definition of labor force participation, is typically measured as women that are employed or seeking work as a share of the working-age female population. Since labor not done for a wage (such as domestic work or care-work within the household) is not counted as labor force participation, and since such work is predominantly done by women, many argue (see, for e.g., Mondal et al. 2018) that female labor force participation underestimates women's labor. Occupational gender segregation or gender-based employment segregation can affect female labor force participation as well as reveal its nature. Occupational gender segregation refers to the disproportionate presence of men and women workers across and within jobs (Das and Kotikula 2019). Occupational gender segregation can be of two typeshorizontal and vertical. Horizontal segregation describes the situation where men and women are distributed across occupations unequally. Vertical segregation refers to the situation where within an occupation there are disparities between the positions that men and women occupy, generally with men holding superior positions. Both kinds of segregation are often associated with disparities in wages and job quality of female and male workers (Anker 1997).

Sociological Research Online, 1999

Despite the prominence of discussions of gender segregation in explanations of labour market inequalities, there have been relatively few cross-national studies due to a lack of suitably detailed data. A recent ILO initiative obtained suitable data for cross-national analysis of 38 countries, with a much greater number of occupational categories than has usually been available. This paper reports findings from the analysis of these data. The problems and potential of using such data are discussed and a standardisation is introduced to control for the effects of the number of occupations in the segregation measure. There are important differences in the level of segregation in different countries. The highly segregated countries are to be found in Western Europe, and in particular Scandinavia. Several Arab countries also have high levels of segregation. An argument is made suggesting that the context and meaning of segregation patterns may be quite different from what might be inferr...

International Sociology, 2006

While the existence of occupational gender segregation is well known, it has been usual to see it as a reflection of women's disadvantage. However, crossnational data show that the greater the segregation, the less tends to be women's disadvantage. The solution to this puzzle entails the introduction of the two orthogonal dimensions of segregation, where only the vertical dimension measures inequality while the horizontal dimension measures difference without inequality. Furthermore, the two dimensions tend to be inversely related, with a tendency for the horizontal component to be larger and so have more effect on the resultant overall segregation; hence the inverse relation between overall segregation and inequality. The usual explanations of segregation, being focused on inequality, are inadequate. To understand the situation it is necessary to take account of the many related factors in social change, and to recognize that horizontal segregation reduces opportunities for gender discrimination within occupations. An exploratory test of the argument is conducted for the US, Canada and Britain. With pay as the vertical dimension the results are essentially as predicted. With CAMSIS, a measure of occupational advantage, a slight advantage lies with women. The test is less clear but consistent with the argument. keywords: cross-national labour trends ✦ gender inequality ✦ gender segregation ✦ occupational segregation ✦ social stratification It is well known that occupations are gendered. In all countries, there is a degree of occupational gender segregation, and in the more industrialized countries, such as those of North America and Europe, the levels are relatively high. Occupations tend to comprise disproportionately large numbers of women or of men. To be sure, segregation in a country is

This paper examines the evolution of horizontal gender segregation by occupation in the urban labour markets of Colombia between 1986 and 2004. In addition to the conventional Dissimilarity Index suggested by , other measures of horizontal occupational segregation are also computed. These are the Gini coefficient of the distribution of jobs by gender and the Karmel and MacLachlan (1988) index of labour market segregation. Overall the results indicate that gender-based occupational segregation in urban Colombia has exhibited a statistically significant reduction over the period under review. This reduction has been more marked among formal sector workers while informal employment persists in being more gender segregated than its formal counterpart. There is also evidence that most of the reduction in the formal sector is explained by a compositional change within occupations performed by workers with university education.

2015

Recent studies have shown that the degree of occupational segregation by gender is declining in the case of high-educated female workers, while it has remained fairly steady for less-educated women. This suggests that education is a key factor in explaining occupational segregation. Nonetheless, despite a strong upward trend in the educational attainments of the female population, female participation in the labour market varies widely across countries, not just in terms of magnitude but also in terms of the nature of jobs held by women. Our goal in this paper is twofold. First, to uncover some determinant factors, besides education, which may help at explaining differences between the EU and the US in occupational segregation by gender. Secondly, to examine its relationship with job characteristics, remuneration and promotion opportunities of female employees. The main findings are that: i) occupational segregation is still higher in the EU than in the US and is mostly due to a lower share of women in executive and managerial jobs, ii) there is a strong positive correlation between overall occupational segregation by gender and the share of part-time jobs; and iii) there is, however, weaker evidence on the existence of a positive relationship between residual gender pay differences and the proportion of women across occupations.

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 1996

1993