Gender in the Emerging Urban Work Force

ABSTRACT:

Industrial restructuring has had a substantial impact on gender differences in work outcomes within urban labor markets. Structural shifts weakened existing patterns of production and employment and redefined jobs, work relations, and market dependencies. The evidence reported here indicates that the emerging national norm will form as a composite of diverse regional market experience. This diversity is demonstrated in tracking the evolving structure of labor demand and of the options available to people seeking work in the nation’s largest cities. It is here that women have claimed almost two-thirds of all new jobs created since 1970. In every sector but the services, women recorded superior intergender competitiveness. Growth in female employment, however, has encompassed disproportionate gains in the moderate and high skill market segments and a marked lag in gains at the entry level, particularly in the class of cities characterized by relatively high resident need and declining population.