Occupational Sex Segregation and its Consequences for the (Re-)Production of Gender Inequalities in the German Labour Market
Final Report Abstract
In the German welfare state, occupations are the structuring principle connecting the educational system and the labour market. In theory, the occupational principle is gender-neutral regarding labour market allocation, because both women and men are channelled into jobs according to the occupations they are trained in. In practice, however, this means that patterns of occupational sex segregation in the education and training system are reproduced in the labour market. As a consequence, occupational sex segregation has important consequences for subsequent employment biographies and life courses of men and women, thereby contributing to the (re-)production of gender inequalities in the German labour market. To examine these consequences, the first project phase focussed on non-monetary labour market outcomes, while the second project phase examined more specifically the gender wage gap in Germany. Overall, the empirical findings of our studies conducted in the first project phase point towards three important results: First, the sex composition within occupations is systematically and causally linked with other characteristics of occupations, for example their wage levels or working time arrangements. Causal directions are specific in these two cases: While occupational sex segregation does affect wage levels, wage levels do not affect sex segregation. In contrast, with regard to part-time work, we found causal associations in both directions with the sex composition of occupations. Second, our empirical findings regarding the individual consequences of working in sex-segregated occupations indicate that mainly occupational characteristics, which are structurally linked with sex segregation, structure employment trajectories. While occupational wage levels affect the duration of family-related employment interruptions, occupational closure influences men’s re-employment chances and women’s unemployment risks. Finally, occupational working time arrangements matter for the transition to part-time work of both, men and women. With the exception of unemployment risks and re-employment chances after phases of unemployment, our results demonstrate that occupational attributes related to occupational sex segregation and not the share of men and women per se reproduce gender inequalities in the German labour market. Third, occupational sex segregation and related occupational characteristics affect employment trajectories of men and women in a gender-differentiated way. Generally, it seems that these factors are more important for shaping the career trajectories of men, influencing, for example, their employment re-entries after unemployment or their transitions to part-time work. For women, these outcomes are more strongly influenced by individual and household level characteristics, such as the presence of children, or by sectoral factors, such as regional unemployment rates. However, when explicitly investigating changes over time, we can see a growing importance of occupational characteristics also for the employment trajectories of women. In this regard, working in female-dominated occupations is not always detrimental to women’s careers, but also might buffer labour market risks. The findings from the second project phase point towards the importance of job tasks and task profiles for the gender wage gap in the German labour market and suggest two main conclusions: First, we demonstrated that male-dominated, mixed and female-dominated occupations show a different mix of task profiles. The trend over time in tasks suggests monetary gains for “typical female” tasks such as cleaning, caring or accommodating, but also for tasks which are usually thought to be more male, such as computer use or analytical tasks. Consequently, the link between job task profiles and occupational sex segregation is not as persistent or uniform as it is often assumed. Furthermore, our findings indicate that men and women perform different tasks when working in the same occupations. Both aspects of job tasks are consequential regarding their effects on wages. The different tasks that women and men perform explains part of the gender pay gap – between and within occupations. Second, the impact of tasks over time is more complex than theoretically assumed. Our analyses suggest that the devaluation of work performed by women works via three mechanisms: 1) gender-specific task specialisation within occupations, 2) different remuneration of similar tasks performed by women and men, and 3) other aspects of “male” and “female” work, such as gender-typical working-time arrangements. In sum, these findings hint at more subtle differences in the type of everyday work and “unseen” hierarchies between men and women working in the same occupation, which contribute to the (re)production of gender inequalities in the German labour market.
Publications
- (2014) Berufliche Segregation auf dem Arbeitsmarkt: Männer- und Frauendomänen kaum verändert. IAB-Kurzbericht 09/2014, Nürnberg
Hausmann, A.-C., Kleinert, C.
- (2015): Entwertung von Frauenberufen oder Entwertung von Frauen im Beruf? Eine Längsschnittanalyse zum Zusammenhang von beruflicher Geschlechtersegregation und Lohnentwicklung in Westdeutschland. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 67, 217–242
Hausmann, A.-C., Kleinert, C., Leuze, K.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11577-015-0304-y) - (2016): Why do occupations dominated by women pay less? How ‘femaletypical’ work tasks and working time arrangements affect the gender wage gap among higher education graduates. Work, Employment and Society 30, 802-820
Leuze, K., Strauß, S.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017015624402) - (2017) Fast Lane or Down the Drain? Does the Occupation Held Prior to Unemployment shape the Transition Back to Work? Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 49, 32-46
Hägglund, A.-E., Bächmann, A.-C.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2017.03.005) - (2017) The duration of family-related employment interruptions – the role of occupational characteristics. Journal for Labour Market Research 50, 143–160
Bächmann, A.-C., Gatermann, D.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12651-017-0226-4)
