Market Transition and Vertical Occupational Gender Segregation

Occupational gender segregation is an important index of gender inequality in the labor market.If male and female workers participate in different occupations,sociologists call it horizontal occupational gender segregation;if male and female workers in the same occupation occupy positions of different ranks,it is known as vertical occupational gender segregation.At present,domestic academic work has largely been on the status and trend in horizontal occupational gender segregation.But weakened horizontal occupational segregation does not necessarily mean weakened vertical occupational gender segregation.Logical fallacy may occur in reasoning,that is,using the gender data from occupation distributions to reason for a conclusion that gender segregation has been weakened.Therefore,the research question in this paper is:Does the vertical segregation with a bias against the female exist in the occupations without much horizontal gender segregation?The relationship between the market transition and the gender equality is the current hot topic in the academic circles,about which scholars have different opinions.So,this paper also attempts to analyze the relationship from the trend of vertical occupational gender segregation during the market transition.This paper reports the results of an analysis of 2009 JSNET Survey of Eight Cities.First of all,female workers were concentrated at lower-level positions in all kinds of occupations.Vertical segregation by sex existed even in gender neutral occupations,meaning that more women were at the positions of lower ranks.Second,the finding from the analysis of the impact of the market transition on vertical occupational segregation by sex indicated that such segregation was worse in the occupations outside the system(non-governmental)than that in the occupations within the system.In other words,more women outside the system were working at lower-rank positions than those within the system.Marketization had intensified gender inequality in the labor market as seen in the vertical occupational segregation by sex,particularly so to the women working in the occupations outside the system.