ECONOMIC

erable occupational segregation by sex, and some believe that the sex segregationis even greater than the racial segregation. For example, 83 percentof managers and 87 percent of farm laborers were men; but only 3 percentof nurses and 16 percent of elementary school teachers were men.Occupational segregation by race derives partly from differences inschooling and partly from the geographical distribution of blacks, who disproportionatelylive in the South. Moreover, there has been substantialdiscrimination against blacks who entered, or tried to enter, certain occupations.This discrimination, stemming from the attitudes of white employers,employees, and consumers of services, resulted in a smaller proportionof blacks entering these occupations. In some professions—for example,medicine, law, and the ministry—blacks were generally restricted to practicingin segregated black markets. In addition, blacks were not always grantedequal opportunity to move up the occupational scale—for example, fromlaborer or operative to foreman or manager.Some of the differences in occupational composition by sex can beattributed to differences in physical attributes. Undoubtedly, however, jobsrequiring physical strength are on the decline, and it is questionablewhether this factor was ever very important. One may also argue thatprejudice on the part of employers, fellow employees, and consumersoperates to exclude women from some activities in the labor market andto favor them in others.Another hypothesis stresses the difference in role identification that leadsto differences between the work careers and training of women and men.That is, women who anticipate combining some work with marriage seekoccupations and work situations which are most complementary to homeresponsibilities, such as those in which hours are shorter or correspond tothe children's school hours, or those offering work close to home. Anothercriterion is the penalty for interruptions in work. For example, womenmight avoid situations with rigid seniority rules, or they might choose careersin which skills are least likely to depreciate during a period spent at home.Some of the occupations stereotyped as women's, such as elementary schoolteaching and nursing, are indeed those where the same skills can be utilizedin the home. According to this view occupational differences arise fromchoice, although the choice may be induced by a pervasive societal biaswhich dictates that home responsibilities are the women's major work. Itis quite difficult to separate empirically the effects of discrimination in thelabor market from the effects of personal considerations in women's occupationalchoices.One may question whether the wage rates received by blacks and womenhave been affected by the occupational segregation. Earnings differ fromoccupation to occupation. If blacks or women were clustered in occupationsthat were low paying for all groups, including white males, then the loweraverage hourly earnings of blacks and women could be attributed to dif-159