STATE OF THE UNION 33 OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION Kim A. Weeden KEY FINDINGS • Thegendersegregationofoccupationsislesspronouncedamongmillennialsthanamonganyother generationinrecentU.S.history. • Bycontrast,millennialsareexperiencingjustasmuchracialandethnicoccupationalsegregationas priorgenerations,eventhoughmillennialsarelesstolerantofovertexpressionsofracism. • Bothtypesofoccupationalsegregation—genderandracial-ethnic—areveryconsequentialforwages. Amongmillennials,occupationalsegregationaccountsfor28percentofthegenderwagegapand 39to49percentofracialwagegaps. oday’s new workers are entering a labor Gender segregation market in which high-paying skilled jobs Figure 1 shows levels of gender segregation by age are more scarce, work is less secure, eco- group and birth year.1 Segregation is measured Tnomic inequalities are more extreme, and a college by the index of dissimilarity, D, which indicates degree is no longer a ticket to a professional or the percentage of women who would need to shift managerial occupation. They also bring to the from a female-dominated occupation to a male- labor market higher levels of education, stronger dominated occupation to have an equal share of preferences for an egalitarian household division women in all occupations. D can also be inter- of labor, and less tolerance for overt expressions of preted as the share of men who would need to racism. move into female-dominated occupations. It might be concluded that, relative to past In Figure 1, the blue line, representing workers generations, millennials have very different tastes of all ages, shows a marked decline in gender seg- and sensibilities and are entering a very different regation over the last 100 years. Among workers type of economy and labor market. This standard ages 21–36 (the orange line), gender segregation “exceptionalist” characterization of millennials increased for cohorts born in the first half of the does not typically take into account the types 20th century, likely reflecting the resegregation of workplace segregation that millennials are that occurred as men returned to the civilian labor experiencing. Are millennials breaking with the force after World War II. But segregation then past by building a highly integrated occupational declined for cohorts born after World War II.2 structure? Or is the millennial economy just as Although workers ages 37–52 (gray line) and 53–71 segregated as ever? This is an important line of (green line) show a similar rise and fall across questioning because workplace segregation is one birth cohorts, it is most pronounced for younger of the key determinants of economic inequality workers. and life chances more generally. The key result is that the youngest millennials I focus in this article on occupational segre- are experiencing less gender segregation than any gation among millennials, where this form of other generation in recent U.S. history. In 2017, segregation refers to the uneven distribution of the youngest millennials were less segregated racial, ethnic, and gender groups across occupa- (D=44%) than the youngest Gen Xers (D=49%) or tions. I examine whether millennials are more or the youngest baby boomers (D=51%). This result less segregated than workers in prior generations accords well with their stronger preferences for and whether occupational segregation remains a more egalitarian household division of labor an important source of gender and racial wage (although nothing in Figure 1 suggests that such inequalities among millennials. PATHWAYS | THE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY REPORT 2019 34 STATEOFTHEUNION|OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION Figure 1. Millennials experience less occupational segregation by gender than millennial women, like those in earlier genera- prior generations. tions, tend to be concentrated in nonmanual jobs (e.g., clerical occupations), while millennial men 70 tend to be concentrated in manual jobs (e.g., craft occupations). The data reveal that this manual- 65 nonmanual divide is in some cases eroding. For example, millennial women constitute a declin- 60 ing share of workers in clerical occupations, a result that’s partly driven by a 15 percentage point 55 decline (from 46% to 31%) in their share of stock 50 clerks and order pickers. With the explosion of online shopping, this occupation has not only Index of dissimilarity (%) 45 experienced rapid growth but shifted from admin- istrative offices and sales floors to warehouses, 40 historically a more male-typed domain. Although 1896 1906 1916 1926 1936 1946 1956 1966 1976 1986 1996 this shows up in our analyses as a lower value of Year of birth D, it is of course best understood as a composi- All ages Ages 21–36 Ages 37–52 Ages 53–71 tional shift in which the setting in which clerical work is increasingly performed (i.e., warehouses) Note: Vertical lines demarcate generations: Greatest (born before 1927), Silent (1927–1945), boomers happens to be a male-typed one. (1946–1964), Gen X (1965–1980), millennials (1981–1996). The more recent birth cohorts are only observed at very young ages: for example, the 1996 birth cohort is only observed at age 21. It’s possible What about vertical segregation? Although it that the apparent decline in segregation for younger millennials is not really a cohort effect at all, but an effect of being very young. However, for Generation X cohorts, where there is enough data to cover their is also pervasive for millennials, the evidence sug- entire early careers, the difference in segregation across age groups is very small. This suggests that gests that it may be weakening slightly. This can be segregation is indeed less pronounced among younger millennials. seen in the size of the negative correlation between an occupation’s mean wages and the share of workers in that occupation who are women. In pooled data from 2013 to 2016, this correlation preferences are a causal factor driving this result). is r=-0.14 across all 474 three-digit occupations These generational differences could reflect among millennials, compared with r=-0.23 among period effects, if the strength of gender-based older workers. sorting that characterizes the labor market when workers first enter has a lasting effect through- Racial segregation out their careers. These generational differences These analyses reveal that millennials are in occu- could also reflect age effects, though, if new labor pations that are less gender segregated than had market entrants become more segregated as they been the case for prior generations. Are millen- leave stopgap occupations for adult careers that are nials also less segregated by race and ethnicity?4 more gender-typical, or change their labor force Figure 2 presents the index of dissimilarity for sets behaviors as they face the reality of combining of pairwise comparisons (e.g., blacks and whites, work and child-rearing. blacks and Asian Americans) for (a) workers from As with prior cohorts, millennials’ patterns millennial and older generations in 2015–2017; of gender segregation reflect “horizontal and (b) Gen X and Boomer generations when they segregation,” the segregation of men and women were 21 through 36 years old (the same age range across occupations entailing different but equally as millennials in 2017).5 desirable tasks (e.g., nurse versus electrician), Levels of racial segregation vary depending on and “vertical segregation,” the segregation of the two groups being compared. Figure 2 shows men and women across occupations that are that self-reported “mixed race” individuals are only very clearly ordered in terms of average pay and modestly segregated from whites (D=12% among other amenities (e.g., nurse versus doctor).3 Is the millennials); by contrast, blacks are highly segre- decline in gender segregation driven by a decline gated from Asian Americans (D=38%). Notably, in both of these two types? though, even this most segregated race pair (i.e., Let’s consider horizontal segregation first. blacks and Asian Americans) is more integrated The main form of horizontal segregation is that than men are with women (D=44%; see above). PATHWAYS| THE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY REPORT 2019 STATEOFTHEUNION|OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION 35 Although racial segregation is less extreme Figure 2. Occupations are not more racially integrated in the than gender segregation, there is not much evi- millennial generation than in earlier generations. dence of any decline in racial segregation across cohorts. At D=27 percent, black-white segrega- Black-white tion was the same for millennials, Gen Xers, and boomers in 2015–2017, and about the same as it was for Gen Xers (D=26%) and boomers Hispanic-white (D=28%) when they were ages 21–36. To be sure, Hispanic-white segregation is lower for millen- nials (D=22%) than for older Americans, likely American Indian-white reflecting plummeting rates of high school drop- out and rising rates of college enrollment among Hispanics over the past two decades.6 However, this decline in Hispanic-white segregation seems Asian-white to be an exception to a general rule of cross-cohort stagnation in racial segregation. Mixed race-white Occupational segregation and wage gaps To what extent does occupational segregation predict gender and racial wage gaps? Among mil- lennials, a college-educated woman who works Black-Hispanic 40 hours a week and has average years of experi- ence has a predicted hourly wage that is $2.74 less (about 7.4%) than a man with similar attributes.7 Black-Asian This gap decreases to $1.98 after adjusting for occupation, implying that occupations “explain” about 25 percent of the gender gap in pay. Among older workers, the baseline gap is larger (about 0 10 20 30 40 50 $5.00, or 10%), but occupational segregation Index of dissimilarity (%) “explains” only about 18 percent of the gender gap Millennials in 2015–2017 Gen Xers at age 21–36 in wages. Gen Xers in 2015–2017 Boomers at age 21–36 The impact of occupational segregation on Boomers in 2015–2017 racial wage gaps is even more substantial. Among millennials, whites have an estimated hourly wage that is $2.40 more than blacks. About 39 percent of this gap is attributable to vertical segregation (i.e., black millennials’ underrepresentation in gaps) and has weakened among millennials.