Page 193 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

CLEVELAND, VESC1O, BARNES-FARRELL
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Furthermore, the strong gendering of family roles reinforces the gendering
of work roles, and vice versa. For example, it is often assumed that women
will have less commitment to the work role because of the concomitant
assumption that women have stronger commitments to family roles. The
interplay of gendered assumptions about work and about family show up
most strongly in research on work-family conflicts and on sex segregation
in occupational choice.
Gendered Work: Occupational Sex Segregation Goldin (2002) reviews evi­
dence suggesting that the gendering of work roles in the United States may
be a fairly recent phenomenon that started in the early 1900s. Although
some have argued that gendered roles date back to hunting vs. foraging
and childcare of earliest man, Goldin's analysis suggests that the develop­
ment of strong links between perceptions of work roles and perceptions
of gender roles in organized work settings became especially prominent
during the time when the concept of "white collar" work was starting to
develop. Historically, women have been concentrated in a relatively small
number of occupations, particularly in service sector work, clerical work,
and retail sales, a category of occupations often referred to as "pink-collar"
jobs (a label consistent with the distinction between "white collar" jobs and
"blue collar" jobs occupied primarily by men).
A number of indices of gender segregation in the workplace exist, but
they all tell essentially the same story. A woman entering the workforce is
very likely to be found in an occupation where the majority of workers are
women. About half of all working women are employed in occupations
that are more than 75% female (Cleveland et al., 2000).
Sex-segregation in occupations provides the most obvious piece of evi­
dence of the gendered nature of work. There are entire categories of jobs that
are implicitly defined as women's work (e.g., cashiers, librarians, daycare
workers) and others that are implicitly defined as men's jobs (automobile
mechanic, garbage truck driver, football coach), and although many indi­
viduals cross these implicit gender boundaries (e.g., male nurses, female
judges), associations between gender and occupations are often strong.
There is also considerable sex segregation within occupations. That is,
women and men within the same occupational category often perform
different jobs for the same employer. Therefore, data reflecting people's
occupations can often underestimate the amount of sex segregation in the
workplace.
Although the gendering of occupations does not necessarily imply that
women will be disadvantaged by this situation, jobs that are held pri­
marily by women tend to involve lower levels of technical skill and re­
sponsibility than jobs held primarily by men and these jobs are generally
not as highly valued by organizations. In fact, one of the best predictors