ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the impact of sex-role ideology and work orientations on occupational choice. It focuses on occupational segregation, which is sometimes loosely called job segregation, although the central issue is people's choice of sex-typed occupations rather than the particular jobs created by employers. In all societies, there is a tendency for women to specialize in certain types of work, while men specialize in other types of work. Polachek's thesis is essentially that few jobs in professional and managerial occupations, but most jobs in clerical, sales and unskilled occupations tolerate intermittent or part-time employment. Contrary to Polachek's thesis, sex-role ideology does not determine occupational choice in Britain at the start of the twenty-first century. The chapter describes the most detailed 371 occupation groups for occupational segregation analysis. An indisputable trend is that the feminization of the workforce is closely linked to the proliferation of part-time and other non-standard jobs.
