The Evolution of Sex Segregation Regimes

Abstract

This article addresses issues of cross‐national convergence in patterns of occupational sex segregation in the context of a new typology that distinguishes between substantive‐egalitarian, formal‐egalitarian, traditional family‐centered, and economy‐centered systems. Each of these systems can be characterized by distinct underlying gender “logics” and by the context of state response to issues of gender equality in the labor market. Using census and labor force survey data from 1960 to 1990 for 14 industrialized countries, log‐linear models are employed to evaluate how levels and patterns of occupational sex segregation have evolved over this time period. Analyses reveal that cross‐national variation in both the levels and patterns of segregation is declining over time; but at the same time, the remaining diversity among countries is increasingly patterned according to one of four segregation regimes. It appears that wholly idiosyncratic cross‐national differences in the contours of occupational sex segregation are withering away as countries come to settle on, with ever‐fewer exceptions, one of four possible segregation regimes.