THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUAL FACTORS, ECONOMIC SECTOR, AND SEX STEREOTYPING ON WOMEN'S OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY AND STATUS ATTAINMENT (HUMAN CAPITAL)
Abstract
This study, using data on mature women from the National Longitudinal Surveys, examines the relationship between human capital and structural variables on the status attainment of women and the extent of their intragenerational occupational mobility. Multiple regression is employed to assess the relative influence of the various factors on whether a woman experiences upward or downward mobility or no mobility; on amounts of upward and downward mobility; and on status attainment. Defining mobility in terms of movement between the gross occupational categories, about one half of the women experienced intragenerational mobility; whereas about two-thirds of the women were mobile when mobility was defined as movement between deciles of a socioeconomic score based on detailed occupations. Compared with men, the women were more likely to experience no mobility, or to be downwardly mobile. Of the individual having an effect on status attainment and mobility, education is found to be significant for all the dependent variables. The proportion of years worked since the completion of school is significant for status attainment, and for the amount of upward mobility. Among the structural variables, compared with staying in the core economic sector, moving out of the core into the periphery is likely to lead to downward mobility and to greater amounts of downward mobility; and staying in the periphery is likely to lead to a smaller amount of upward mobility. Moving into or remaining in a male sex stereo-typed occupation as compared to remaining in a female sex-typed occupation leads to higher status attainment, a greater amount of upward mobility, and has a positive effect on type of mobility. The structural variables do a better job of explaining mobility and status attainment than do the individual variables. However, economic sector and sex typing explained different proportions of the variance depending upon the dependent variable. For type of mobility, economic sector explained slightly more of the variance than sex stereotyping; for status attainment, the opposite was true. Almost all of the variance explained by the structural factors for amount of upward mobility was due to sex stereotyping; whereas sex stereotyping contributed almost nothing toward explaining downward mobility.
Subject Area
Sociology
Recommended Citation
HANNON, NATALIE RODKIN, "THE INFLUENCE OF INDIVIDUAL FACTORS, ECONOMIC SECTOR, AND SEX STEREOTYPING ON WOMEN'S OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY AND STATUS ATTAINMENT (HUMAN CAPITAL)" (1986). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI8615713.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI8615713
