Although the sexes have become increasingly similar in their likelihood of employment outside the home, within the workplace women and men differ dramatically in the kinds of jobs they hold.
Sex segregation is problematic for several reasons.
Most importantly, it promotes and sustains the wage gap between the sexes. In view of the pervasiveness of segregation and its adverse consequences for women, in 1981 several groups sponsored an examinati6n of sex segregation in the workplace by the Committee on Women's Employment and Related Social Issues of the National Research Council. The sponsors are the U.S. Department of Education, the Employment and Training Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The two-day workshop, held in May 1982, brought together two dozen scholars. This volume includes revised versions of several papers presented there and the remarks of commentators, along with three papers the committee subsequently commissioned.