Divisions of labour. Social groups and occupational allocation

Abstract

This paper explores the multidimensional contours of occupational segregation and the causal processes that generate occupational distributions. Previous research in this field has focused on a single classificatory dimensions (e.g. gender or race or citizenship status) or has examined segregation across a limited subset of occupations. Little is therefore known about how distributional patterns differ across cross-classified social groups, considerably less about how these patterns change in response to social and economic pressures. Based on multivariate analysis of Swiss occupational data for 1980 and 1990, trends in occupational composition are examined across two dimensions simultaneously: gender and citizenship-status. Evidence is found to support a number of substantive arguments, in particular those suggesting opportunity-enhancing effects of occupational growth, and segregative effects of post-industrial economic restructuring. But in each case, effects are group-specific: growth effects are restricted to women (both native and foreign); economic rationalization results in inflows of foreigners; and service-sector expansion effects growing representation of native women. While the distributional particularities of the various 'secondary' social groups have been well documented in previous research, the present analysis also reveals fundamental intergroup differences in allocative processes, with some relationships clearly reflecting the logic of gender, and others apparently driven by citizenship dynamics.