This study examines the process underlying sex segregation at the organizational level by focusing on the process through which organizations renew their workforce. The authors used a sample of 1,460 Swedish workplaces that recruited 75,261 employees during the period 1991 to 1995. The results indicate that the most important factor in reproducing segregation at the organizational level is sex segregation in the occupations from which organizations recruit their personnel. Organizations’ sex composition is to a very high degree determined by the sex composition of the occupations they employ. In addition, large organizations and expanding organizations tend to make more sex-atypical recruitments compared with other organizations.
Allmendinger, J., & Hackman, R. J. (1995). The more, the better? A four-nation study of the inclusion of women in symphony orchestras. Social Forces, 74, 423-460.
2.
Bach, R. L., & Perrucci, C. C. (1984). Organizational influences on the sex composition of college and university faculty: A research note. Sociology of Education, 57, 193-198.
3.
Baron, J. N. (1991). Organizational evidence of ascription in labor market. In R. R. Cornwall & P. V. Wunnava (Eds.), New approaches to economic and social analyses of discrimination (pp. 113-143). New York: Praeger.
4.
Baron, J. N., & Bielby, W. T. (1980). Bringing the firms back in: Stratification, segmentation, and the organization of work. American Sociological Review, 45, 737-765.
5.
Baron, J. N., Mittman, B. S., & Newman, A. E. (1991). Target of opportunity: Organizational and environmental determinants of gender integration within the California Civil Service, 1979-1985. American Journal of Sociology, 6, 1365-1401.
6.
Baron, J. N., & Pfeffer, J. (1994). The social psychology of organizations of inequality. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57, 190-209.
7.
Becker, G. (1957). The economics of discrimination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
8.
Bielby, W. T., & Baron, J. N. (1984). A woman’s place is with other women: Sex segregation within organizations. In B. F. Reskin (Ed.), Sex segregation in workplaces: Trends, explanations, remedies (pp. 27-55). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
9.
Bryk, A. S., & Raudenbush, S. W. (2002). Hierarchical linear models: Applications and data analysis methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
10.
Bygren, M. (2001). Career outcomes in the Swedish labor market: Three contextual studies. Doctoral dissertation, Swedish Institute for Social Research, Stockholm.
11.
Carrington, W. J., & Troske, K. R. (1995). Gender segregation in small firms. Journal of Human Resources, 30, 503-533.
12.
Cohen, L. E., Broschak, J. P., & Haveman, H. A. (1998). And then there were more? The effect of organizational sex composition on the hiring and promotion of managers. American Sociological Review, 63, 711-727.
13.
Cotter, D. A., DeFiore, J. M., Hermsen, J. M., Marsteller Kowalewski, B., & Vannerman, R. (1995). Occupational gender desegregation in the 1980s. Work and Occupations, 22, 3-21.
14.
DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1991). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. In P. J. DiMaggio & W. W. Powell (Eds.), The newinstitutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 63-82). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
15.
Duncan, O. D., & Duncan, B. (1955). A methodological analysis of segregation indices. American Sociological Review, 20, 210-217.
16.
Elvira, M. M., & Cohen, L. E. (2001). The location matter: Across-level analysis of the effects of organizational sex composition on turnover. Academy ofManagement Journal, 44, 591-605.
17.
Fritzell, J., & Lundberg, O. (Eds.). (1994). Vardagens villkor: Levnadsförhållanden i Sverige under tre decennier [Everyday life: Living conditions in Sweden during three decades]. Stockholm: Brombergs.
18.
Granovetter, M. (1974). Getting a job: Astudy of contacts and careers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
19.
Hultin, M. (1998). Gender differences in authority: Discrimination and the role of organizational leaders. Acta Sociologica, 41, 99-113.
20.
Jämo [The Equal Opportunities Ombudsman]. (2001). Jämställdhetslagen. [The Equal Opportunities Act]. Available at http://www.jamombud.se/
21.
Jones, K., & Duncan, C. (1998). Modeling context and heterogeneity: Applying multilevel models. In E. Scarbrough & E. Tanenbaum (Eds.), Research strategies in the social sciences (pp. 95-123). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
22.
Kanter, R. M. (1977). Men and women of the corporation. New York: Basic Books.
23.
Kemper, T. D. (1974). On the nature and purpose of ascription. American Sociological Review, 39, 844-853.
24.
Konrad, A. M., & Pfeffer, J. (1991). Understanding the hiring of women and minorities. Sociology of Education, 64, 141-157.
25.
Konrad, A. M., Winter, S., & Gutek, B. A. (1992). Diversity in work group sex composition: Implications for majority and minority members. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 10, 115-140.
26.
le Grand, C., Szulkin, R., & Tåhlin, M. (1996). Sveriges arbetsplatser: organisation, personalutveckling, styrning [Swedish establishments: Organization, personnel development, control]. Stockholm: SNS förlag.
27.
le Grand, C., Szulkin, R., & Tåhlin, M. (2001). Har jobben blivit bättre? [Have the jobs improved?]. In J. Fritzell, M. Gähler, & O. Lundberg (Eds.), Välfärd och arbete i arbetslöshetens årtionde (pp. 79-119). Stockholm: Fritzes.
28.
Marsden, P. V. (1996). The staffing process. Recruitment and selection methods. In A. L. Kalleberg, D. Knoke, P. V. Marsden, & J. L. Spaeth (Eds.), Organizations in America (pp. 133-156). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
29.
Maume, D. J. J. (1999). Glass ceilings and glass escalators: Occupational segregation and race and sex differences in managerial promotions, Work and Occupations, 26, 483-509.
30.
Mayhew, L. (1968). Ascription in modern societies. Sociological Inquiry, 38, 105-120.
31.
Mittman, B. S. (1992). Theoretical and methodological issues in the study of organizational demography and demographic change. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 10, 3-53.
32.
National Labor Market Board (Arbetsmarknadsstyrelsen, AMS). (2002). Kvarstående arbestslösa och I konjunkturberoende program. Årstal [Unemployed and inactive labor market programmes. Numbers on a yearly basis]. Available at: www.ams.se/admin/Documents/ams/arbdata/arblos/arb8001h.pdf
33.
Nermo, M. (1996). Occupational sex segregation in Sweden, 1968-1991. Work and Occupations, 23, 319-332.
34.
Perry, E. L., Davis-Blake, A., & Kulik, C. T. (1994). Explaining gender-based selection decisions: Asynthesis of contextual and cognitive approaches. Academy of Management Review, 19, 786-820.
35.
Pfeffer, J. (1977). Towards an explanation of stratification in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 22, 553-567.
36.
Reskin, B. F. (1993). Sex segregation in theworkplace. Annual Reviewof Sociology, 19, 241-270.
37.
Reskin, B. F. (2003). Including mechanisms in our models of ascriptive inequality. American Sociological Review, 68, 1-21.
38.
Reskin, B. F., & McBrier, D. B. (2000). Why not ascription? Organizations’ employment of female and male managers. American Sociological Review, 65, 210-233.
39.
Reskin, B. F., McBrier, D. B., & Kmec, J. A. (1999). The determinants and consequences ofwork organizations sex and race composition. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 335-361.
40.
Reskin, B. F., & Roos, P. (1990). Job queues, gender queues: Explaining women’s inroads into male occupations. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
41.
Salancik, G. R., & Pfeffer, J. (1978). Uncertainty, secrecy, and the choice of similar others. Social Psychology, 41, 246-255.
42.
Statistics Sweden. (1989). Occupations in population and housing census 1985 (FoB 85) according to Nordic standard occupational classification (Nordisk yrkesklassificering, NYK) and Swedish socio-economic classification (Socioekonomisk indelning, SEI) (Reports on Statistical Co-ordination 1989:5). Stockholm: Author.
43.
Stinchcombe, A. L., McDill, M. S., & Walker, D. R. (1968). Demography of organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 74, 221-229.
44.
Swedish Statute Book, SFS. (1991). Stockholm: Allmänna förlaget.
45.
Tolbert, P. S., & Oberfield, A. A. (1991). Sources of organizational demography: Faculty sex ratios in colleges and universities. Sociology of Education, 64, 305-315.
46.
Tolbert, P. S., Simons, T., Andrews, A., & Rhee, J. (1995). The effects of gender composition in academic departments on faculty turnover. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 48, 562-579.
47.
Tomaskovic-Devey, D. (1993). Gender& racial inequality at work. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press, Cornell University.
48.
Tomaskovic-Devey, D., Kalleberg, A. L., & Marsden, P. V. (1996). Organizational patterns of gender segregation. In A. L. Kalleberg, D. Knoke, P. V. Marsden, & J. L. Spaeth (Eds.), Organizations in America (pp. 276-301). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
49.
Tsui, A. S., Egan, T. D., & O’Reilly, C. A. (1992). Being different: Relational demography and organizational attachment. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 549-579.
50.
Tyrkkö, A., & Westberg, H. (2001). Förskjutning i segregeringsmönster på yrkesnivå. Bearbetning av folkoch bostadsräkningar 1970-1990 och arbetsmiljöundersökningar 1989-1995 [Shifts in the segregation patterns at the occupational level using the Census 1970-1990 and work environment surveys 1989-1995]. Stockholm: National Institute for Working Life.
51.
Weber, M. (1978). Economy and society. Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1922)
52.
Wharton, A. S., & Baron, J. N. (1987). So happy together? The impact of gender segregation on men at work. American Sociological Review, 52, 574-587.
53.
Williams, K. Y., & O’Reilly, C. A. (1998). Demography and diversity in organizations. Areview of 40 years of research. Research in Organizational Behavior, 20, 77-140.
