Blog 12

Occupational segregation can refer to race, religion, sexual orientation, age, and gender among many things. Gender occupational segregation occurs regardless of laws set in place by EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Although men and women should be getting paid the same amount and have the same opportunities for advancement they do not. Women receive about 70% of men’s wages in the same occupation despite education, experience, and other background factors. Men and women have been unequal since the founding of country- women had to work for land owning privileges, voting rights, and had to make a place for themselves in the women place while men were away at war. It is a slow process of men and women becoming completely equal and as a country we are working towards it. A social factor that contributes to occupational segregation is the idea of women staying at home to raise children while the men are the breadwinners in the family. This idea is slowly becoming a thing of the past while more women are graduating from college than men and les women are getting married and having children at a young age. Women have some advantage by breaking into male occupations such as making more money. If women break into industries which men are usually in them can make more money than in traditional women jobs. An IT worker, construction manager, or car repairer will make more than a receptionist, house cleaner, or another job that women usually hold. Another advantage is many male dominated careers are just that-careers, not jobs. With a career they will have a long term job with possible advancements versus just a dead end job. Men lose in the workplace when women enter because it is a surprise if women excel in male dominated jobs. Upper management will be more impressed with women who are completing the same tasks as a male because women do not usually do it. It is interesting that women are slowly beginning to step into a normally male dominated career as social norms are changing. More women are getting careers versus staying at home to raise a family and are relying less on men to support them. As women become more independent and gender laws are more enforced then women can eventually be equal to men in the workplace.