[2] Ultimately, occupational segregation results in wage gaps and the loss of opportunities for capable candidates who are overlooked because of their gender and race.
[8][9] Over the last century in the United States, there has been a surprising stability of segregation-index scores, which measure the level of occupational segregation of the labor market.
[10] There were declines in occupational segregation in the 1970s and 1980s, as technologies that made the care work of the home quicker and easier allowed more women time to enter the workforce.
Due to the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and the slow transition into an industrial economy, the South’s workforce has been more racially segregated than the rest of the United States.
[12] The Great Migration (1910 - 1970) represented a shift in the African American population from the South to the North, and from agricultural to industrial jobs.
[13] In the 1940s, the types of jobs available began to shift from industrial to service, while the agricultural portion switched to machines that did not require many workers.
Data from Equitable Growth states the wage gap between black women and white men is "often interpreted by economists as the closest approximation of real discrimination".
Of the observed variables, however, racial and gender differences in industry and occupation—collectively referred to as workplace segregation—explain by far the largest portion of the gap (28 percent, or 10 cents for every dollar earned by a white man)".
One of the main reasons occupational segregation is an issue for black women in the first place is the racial and ethnic discrepancy in access to high-quality educational and financial resources, which hurts children’s educational outcomes, and college access results in long-term labor market opportunities instead of higher-paying jobs.
Socialist feminists critiqued the exploitation of women's household and reproductive labor, since it was not viewed as a commodity that deserved payment in the market economy.
The idea that nurses and teachers are often pictured as women whereas doctors and lawyers are often assumed to be men are examples of how highly ingrained horizontal segregation is in our society.
[4] The intersectionality of race/ethnicity and gender in occupational segregation means that the two factors build on one another in a complex way to create their own unique sets of issues.
According to Sarah Damaske, this choice is often made because high status positions do not allow time for the heavy domestic workload that many women expect to take on due to the gendered division of labor in the home.
[10] Working-class women in particular also sometimes self-select out of more time-intensive or higher-status positions to maintain the traditional gender hierarchy and household accord.
For some immigrants, despite having high levels of experience in the country they come from, they are unable to obtain an equally ranked job due to unfamiliarity with the language.
[5] Low education accounts for a large percentage of why Native Americans and black people are more segregated in the workplace.
[4] Human capital explanations are those that argue that an individual's and a group's occupational and economic success can be at least partially attributed to accumulated abilities developed through formal and informal education and experiences.
This can be seen in areas such as finance, which is very mathematics heavy and is also a very popular field for those who eventually rise to high status positions in the private sector.
Human resource steering can occur when this role is used to turn women and racial minorities to jobs with lower salaries.
The gap between men and women's tenure rises with age, and female college graduates are more likely than males to interrupt their careers to raise children.
According to sociologists Hanson and Pratt, men and women employ different strategies in their job searches that play a role in occupational segregation.
These differing strategies are influenced by power relations in the household, the gendered nature of social life, and women's domestic responsibilities.
[30] Residential communities consisting of a single racial minority in metropolitan areas tend to form job networks due to isolation from other races.
However, when positions open up for women in business and other high-earning occupations, school boards must raise the salaries of potential teachers to attract candidates.
[8] Von Lockette found that in metropolitan areas with a high concentration of occupational segregation, less-educated black, Latino, and white males received less pay.
Those who are highly skilled cannot contribute to the "constantly changing labor economy", resulting in a decrease in efficiency and diverse thinking.
[37] Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was designed to ensure fair treatment and legal protection to women and minority groups.
[39] Title VII states that it is illegal to “discriminate in employment based on a person’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” and is enforced by the EEOC.
[33] Some scholars, such as Haveman and Beresford, therefore argue that any policies aimed at reducing occupational inequality must focus on culture changes.
Therefore, policies that aim at capping work hours for salaried workers or mandate on-site employer sponsored childcare might be most effective.