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Causes of occupational segregationThe persistence of occupational segregation canbe explained by gender differences in education,training and experience; discrimination; socialnorms; and the unequal distribution of unpaid careand domestic work. 108 Deeply ingrained stereotypesabout gender roles and differences in aptitudes,and the stigmatization of certain occupations, playan important part in shaping preferences andmaintaining occupational segregation.Higher levels of education are associated with areduction in occupational segregation in the UnitedStates: analysis of data from 1970 to 2009 found thelargest decreases in segregation among collegegraduates, but very little change among those withincomplete secondary education. 109 This analysisalso found that the pace of change during thisperiod decreased significantly, all but stalling in the2000s, suggesting that education is not enough onits own to eliminate the problem. 110Furthermore, the differences in girls’ and boys’ fieldsof educational specialization remain entrenchedand strongly influence occupational segregation.These differences start early but grow larger asyoung people progress through the educationsystem. Women are more likely to study humanities,while men specialize in highly-valued technicaland scientific fields. 111 Gender differences in subjectchoices at school also lead to women’s lower accessto technical and vocational education and training(TVET) that could improve their skills and labourmarket outcomes. 112Gender-based violence perpetuates occupationalsegregation. Pervasive sexual harassment and otherforms of violence in the workplace serve to reinforceor maintain existing hierarchies and gender powerrelations. For example, women may be reluctantto take up a job in a male-dominated occupationor apply for a promotion because of a real orperceived threat of harassment or violence, therebyperpetuating segregation.A recent survey in EU countries found that 75 per centof women in management and higher professionalpositions and 61 per cent of women in service sectoroccupations have experienced some form of sexualharassment in their lifetime. 113 In a study of womenworking in typically male trades in the United States,nearly a third reported that they frequently or alwaysexperienced sexual harassment. 114 While there areno comparable surveys for developing countries,several studies highlight that women are frequentlytargeted for sexual harassment by employers,suppliers, managers or service providers asking forsexual favours in return for timely payment or forpromotion. 115Such violence impacts women at every level: womenin leadership or management positions may betargeted because they present a threat to malepower. 116 For some women, such as domestic, migrantor sex workers, abuse may be especially difficult andrisky to counter because of the lack of legal protectionor access to justice. 117The lack of support for childcare in developingcountries and the fact that women often have tocombine childcare with income earning (see Figure2.5) contribute to their segregation in informal selfemploymentsuch as home-based work. Similarly,service sector jobs are more likely to offer workschedules aligned with unpaid care and domesticwork demands (e.g., teaching) or flexible or part-timeworking hours (e.g., sales or clerical work) that enablewomen to combine paid and unpaid work. Women’semployment in the service sector has risen from 36per cent of total women’s employment in 1990 to51 per cent in 2013. 118 The concentration of womenin these roles means that these jobs are typicallyundervalued and come with a pay penalty. 119A significant part of the growth of service sectorjobs has been in paid domestic work. For example,in Latin America and the Caribbean, paid domesticwork accounts for 15 per cent of the female workforceand contributed 22 per cent of the growth in femaleemployment in the service sector in this regionbetween 1995 and 2010. 120 The clustering of lowincomewomen, many of them migrants and/orfrom ethnic minorities, into paid domestic workhas contributed to the persistence of occupationalsegregation at the bottom of the employmentladder. Meanwhile, better off, professional women