Separate And Unequal



The figure below from the IWPR report shows how this has changed over time. The y axis is an “Index of Dissimilarity.” Basically, a score of one indicates complete segregation and a score of zero means that the job is 50/50 male and female.

The white line, labeled “civilian labor force” shows that, overall, sex segregation has been going down over time. It also shows, however, that most of the decrease occurred in the ’70s and ’80s.  It has changed little since then.

The lines above and below the white line show that sex segregation correlates with education level.  People who have at least a bachelors degree are in less sex segregated jobs, while people who did not attend or finish college tend to be in more segregated jobs. This means that, insofar as sex segregation at work contributes to a wage gap, it is more extreme for working class people than for others.

Reprinted from Sociological Images.

Photo of money from Flickr user under Creative Commons.


  1. "4 in 10 women work in jobs that are 75 percent female; the reverse is true for men."

    What is the reverse of that statement? 4 in 10 men work jobs that are 25% male? 6 in 10 men work jobs 75% male? I'm confused.

    As far as I can tell the statement says "Almost half of women work in fields predominantly female." … Yeah, I still don't know what the reverse of that is.

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