ABSTRACT
Despite the rapid influx of women into the labor force over the last few decades, most continue to work in a rather narrow range of traditional female occupations. The term "occupational segregation" is used to refer to this concentration of women in occupations that are predominantly female. During the 1980s there was a slight decrease in the level of segregation in the workplace (Jacobs 1989), yet it is still the case that almost half of all employed women today work in occupations that are more than 75 percent female. Examples of occupations dominated by women include librarian, health technician, secretary and typist, nurse, data-entry worker, bank teller, bookkeeper, telephone operator, sewer and stitcher, child-care worker, and dental assistant.
