9310557 LEICHT One of the most important developments in the workplace over the past twenty years has been the movement of large numbers of women into professional work. This has occurred in a context of growing dissatisfaction with differences in professional opportunities available to men and women in bureaucratic organizations. In spite of the public recognition this problem has received, there has been little systematic study of careers among male and female professionals and little understanding of when and how the careers of male and female professionals diverge. This project will provide answers to fundamental questions regarding gender stratification among professionals, such as the processes that lead male and female professionals to change jobs and the labor market forces that lead them to accept positions in corporations with different characteristics. This information will be of vital importance for understanding workplace discrimination in a context of expanding opportunities for women in the professions. The study examines the growth and divergence of opportunities for professional men and women by studying career development within corporate legal departments in large U.S. corporations. The project will be conducted in two phases. The first phase will attempt to determine what characteristics of corporations and legal departments lead to high concentrations of women within certain departments and job titles. The second phase of the project will look at factors affecting job changes among individual department members, focusing on the effects of early career events on the movements of male and female professionals. The data for this project will be taken from successive waves of the Law and Business Directory of Corporate Counsel (1980-1992) and be supplemented with corporation level information provided by other published sources. ***
