Sex Segregation In The 1990s

Sex segregation has diminished, especially when comparing 1990s data to pre-1970 levels; however, studies showed that the rate of reduction has either reduced or stalled since the 1990s. At work, sex segregation refers to the tendency of women and men to work in different jobs that are sex-typed. Hegewisch, Phil, Liepmann, Hayes, and Hartmann (2010) presented the original data analyses of trends in occupational segregation from the 1970s to the 1990s. Findings indicated that while there had been improvements in the gender segregation of men and women across occupations from the 1970s to the 1980s, progress had since then stalled since the late 1990s. Particularly affected were occupations that required at least a four-year college degree and those with low educational attainment levels.

3). Furthermore, “in 2009 there were only marginally more female ‘computer programmers’ than in 1972 (20.3 percent now compared to 19.9 percent then),” however, “ after an initial increase in women’s share of the occupation to more than one-third of programmers in the late 1980s, their share has fallen consistently since 1989” (Hegewisch et al., 2010, p. 3). A sad conclusion of the report is that “occupational gender segregation for young women, aged 25 – 34 years, is now stronger than it was at the beginning of this millennium” (Hegewisch et al., 2010, p. 13). Blau, Brummund, and Yung-Hsu Liu (2013) confirmed these findings through their survey that showed trends in occupational segregation. Findings suggested that by 2000, the pace of decrease in sex segregation