Occupational Segregation
What is Occupational Segregation?
Occupational segregation is the uneven spread of demographic groups across jobs, so some occupations end up heavily male, heavily female or racially skewed.
Occupational segregation is about which jobs people hold, not what they are paid inside a given job. It moves earnings through the crowding hypothesis: pushing one group into a narrow set of occupations raises labor supply there and drives the wage down, while restricting supply in the occupations they are kept out of props wages up. Nursing and early childhood teaching are heavily female, while construction trades and long haul trucking are heavily male. The causes are mixed and disputed, spanning hiring and promotion barriers, differences in training and licensing, expectations formed long before anyone enters the labor market, and preferences over hours and conditions. The contrast with wage discrimination is clean: that is unequal pay for the same work, while segregation is unequal access to different work.
Occupational Segregation: a worked example
Suppose two occupations have identical labor demand, with the wage equal to $40 minus $0.20 for each worker hired. With 100 workers free to choose, 50 enter each and both pay $40 minus $10, or $30 an hour. Now bar 20 members of one group from occupation A, so they crowd into B: A employs 30 at $40 minus $6, or $34, while B employs 70 at $40 minus $14, or $26. An $8 gap opens even though no employer pays two people differently for the same job. Crowding alone produced it, which is why segregation can generate group pay gaps that look nothing like classic wage discrimination.
The mistake students make with occupational segregation
Students hear occupational segregation and picture an employer paying women less for identical work, which is wage discrimination instead. Segregation is about the sorting into different jobs in the first place, and it can produce a large group pay gap even when every employer pays the going rate for each position. The reverse error is calling it harmless because it reflects choices, since the crowding effect still pushes wages down in the occupations one group is concentrated in.
Occupational Segregation questions
How does occupational segregation affect wages?
Occupational segregation lowers wages in the occupations a group is crowded into and raises them in the occupations that group is kept out of. Concentrating workers into fewer jobs increases labor supply there, which pushes the wage down along the demand curve. Economists call this the crowding hypothesis.
Is occupational segregation the same as wage discrimination?
No, occupational segregation is about which jobs people hold, while wage discrimination is unequal pay for equally productive workers doing the same job. Segregation can create a group pay gap with no unequal pay inside any single job. The two often appear together, which is what makes them easy to confuse.
What causes occupational segregation?
Occupational segregation comes from a mix of hiring and promotion barriers, differences in training and licensing, expectations formed in childhood and school, and differences in preferences over hours and conditions. Economists disagree about how much weight each factor carries. The mix also shifts as fields open up, which is why segregation is measured rather than assumed.
Related terms
Common comparisons
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