This study will assess and investigate the determinants of 1970- 1990 trends in occupational sex and race segregation, and trends in the sex and race composition of specific occupations. The investigators have already created occupational-level data files aggregated from individual-level 1970 and 1980 census microdata. This project will create a similar file for 1990 that will permit three-wave pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis. The unit of analysis is the detailed occupation. The dependent variables are changing proportions of various race-sex groups (e.g. black women) across the more than 500 detailed occupations. The independent variables measure occupational growth, attractiveness, white male labor supply, the ability of their customary workers to exclude outsiders, their economic pressures to lower costs, economic advantages to hiring nontraditional workers, and vulnerability to legal sanctions. The research will contribute to several fields of sociology, including occupations, stratification, mobility, gender and race relations. In so doing, it will strengthen the knowledge base for policy decisions concerning equal employment regulations and concerning the diversity of the future American labor force.
