A Comparison of the Sex-Type of Occupational Aspirations and Subsequent Achievement

Abstract

This article further explores the connection between the sex-type of a girl's occupational aspirations and the sex-type of her subsequent occupation achieved in the labor market. The authors replicate previous work by Jerry Jacobs and build on it by using more recent data and an alternative methodology to address this issue. Two cohorts of data from the National Longitudinal Surveys are employed to estimate transition probability matrices between the sex-types of aspired occupations and the sex-types of achieved occupations. Then, multivariate models of the probability of entering a traditional (i.e., female-dominated) or nontraditional (i.e., male-dominated) occupation are estimated. The authors find that Jacobs actually overestimated the relationship between aspirations and achievement and that this relationship has, in some ways, grown weaker over time.

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