Sociology I / Work and the Gendered Labour Market
Practice question · Fill in the blanks

Complete the account of how the labour market is divided by gender.

The distribution of women and men across different occupations is called ______ segregation, while their distribution across levels within an occupation is called ______ segregation. The metaphor for the second is the ______ ceiling. Research now attributes much of the divergence in earnings trajectories to the ______ penalty that follows a first birth.

Word bank: horizontal · vertical · glass · child · occupational · marriage

Hints
  1. One kind of segregation is across occupations and the other is up and down within them.
  2. The penalty in the last blank appears at a specific life event rather than at marriage.
Show the answer

The distribution of women and men across different occupations is called horizontal segregation, while their distribution across levels within an occupation is called vertical segregation. The metaphor for the second is the glass ceiling. Research now attributes much of the divergence in earnings trajectories to the child penalty that follows a first birth.

Why

The two forms of segregation need separating because they call for different explanations and different remedies. Horizontal segregation is largely settled before labour-market entry, in subject choice and training; vertical segregation happens afterwards, inside organisations, and is where the child penalty does most of its work.

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