Sex differences in patterns of career mobility

Using the 1970 Census data, this paper examines differences by sex in patterns of intragenerational occupational mobility over a five year period (1965–1970) for two cohorts of white, U.S. men and women. The observed mobility patterns are separated into that part due to structural factors (i.e., the different distributions over occupational origins and destinations by sex) and that due to sex-related individual and group characteristics. Most of the observed differences in mobility patterns are found to be the result of occupational sex segregation.