Question

1. Using the information in the table below, calculate the Index of Segregation by occupation. Interpret the index number that you calculated and provide an explanation of it's meaning.

Occupation	Men	Women
Managerial	11,005	9,387
Professional and Technical	12,063	13,952
Sales	7,601	6,953
Clerical/Administrative	3,751	14,128
Service	6.465	10,066
Production/Craft	13,516	1,283
Operatives	9,302	3,007
Laborers	3,631	1,011
Total	67,334	59,787

**Note: All numbers are in thousands**

2. Carefully explain the two broad potential causes for the extent of gender segregation in the United States: "Rational Choice" and "Discrimination"

3. Explain how occupational segregation based on employer preference and crowding could cause a gender wage differential to emerge. Explain how this gender wage differential differs from one that results because of different preferences by gender(over job safety, or hours, or schedule) and the resulting compensating differentials.

Answer 1

1.

2.

Traditional blue-collar occupations such as operatives and craft continue to be male dominated, while women remain concentrated in service and clerical occupations. (See table 1.) Other occupations, such as managerial, professional and technical, and sales appear to be distributed almost evenly by gender. For women, the most popular occupations are clerical (a traditionally female-dominated occupation) and professional and technical; for men, the most popular occupations are production and craft, professional and technical, and managerial. Table 1 also presents a well-known measure of the disparity in occupational distributions: the Index of Dissimilarity (ID). This index, based on the absolute deviation in the percentages of men and women across occupations, is defined as