New jobs, old occupational stereotypes: gender and jobs in the new economy

Abstract

This paper reports data from a questionnaire‐based UK study that examined occupational sex‐role stereotypes, perceived occupational gender segregation, job knowledge and job preferences of male and female pupils aged 14–18 for 23 jobs. Data were collected from 508 pupils in total. Both boys and girls perceived the majority of the jobs as being gender‐segregated. Girls perceived jobs as being more gender‐segregated than did males, but boys stereotyped jobs more than did girls. Both males and females preferred jobs that they saw as stereotypically gender‐appropriate and dominated by their own sex. However, for females, this association between job preference and perceived stereotyping/segregation decreased with age, while for males, it remained constant across the age groups. Females claimed more knowledge about jobs they preferred, but for males there was no association between job preference and job knowledge. Results are discussed in the context of UK policies to challenge occupational gender segregation.

Keywords:

• Occupational segregation
• Occupational stereotypes
• Job knowldge
• Job preferences

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank: all of the pupils and teachers who participated in the research; Laura Murdoch and Rosemin Najmudin for their help with data collection; Sally Dench, Fiona Jones, Christopher R. Hayward, Jim Hillage, Jennifer Hurstfield and Fiona Neathey for their comments on earlier drafts of the paper; and Michael Thewlis, Emma Hart and James Walker‐Hebburn for their assistance in producing the figures. We would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

Part of this work was undertaken while the authors were at the University of Hertfordshire.

1. The source is the BMRB survey of 1000 adults, conducted in April 2004, on behalf of the EOC.

2. We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for making this observation.

3. It should be noted that the lessening of correlation statistics for the girls arises in large part from increasing interest in non‐ and masculine‐stereotyped jobs; reduction in liking occurs for fewer of the feminine‐stereotyped jobs with age.

4. Young apprenticeships will allow children as young as 14 to complete vocational programmes of study in work placements while continuing in school. They were just starting to be introduced at the time this article was written.