Following lives from birth and through the adult years Erzsébet Bukodi and Shirley Dex GeNet Final Conference Cambridge, 26-27 March

following lives from birth and through the adult years www.cls.ioe.ac.uk

Erzsébet Bukodi and Shirley Dex

GeNet Final Conference

Cambridge, 26-27 March 2009

Work-life career mobility: changing gender differences?


Research questions

Are there gender differences in the pattern of work-life occupational mobility?

Are women’s and men’s occupational trajectories (in terms of earnings and social status) converging or diverging over time, across cohorts?


Overview

Policy and legislative context Data and labour market context Two measures for occupational standing Occupational attainment over the career A typology of occupational histories The role of education and entry position in

work-life occupational mobility


Some relevant background

1970s was the decade of major legislative and policy change on equality: Equal Pay legislation 1975 Anti sex discrimination legislation Statutory maternity leave

Decade for family policy changes from 1997 onwards National Child Care Strategy; Sure Start Programme;

Working Families Tax Credit; Part-time work directive; Family leave directive; parental leave; Paid paternity leave; enhanced and wider eligibility maternity leave, Min wage.


Data: Three British Birth Cohort Studies MRC National Survey of Health and Development:

all children born in England, Wales and Scotland in one week in 1946.

follow up data collections took place twice from ages 1 to 4, 8 times between ages 5-15, 7 times between ages 16-31 and 3 times between ages 32-53

The National Child Development Study Census of babies born in a certain week of 1958 in GB 7 main interview waves up to 2004 (age 46)

The British Cohort Study Census of babies born in a certain week of 1970 in GB 6 sweeps up to 2004 (age 34)

In all surveys: Retrospective occupational histories


Data: sample size

Men Women

Cohort 1946 4906 4928

Cohort 1958 7276 7044

Cohort 1970 6006 6166


Two measures for occupational standing Earnings and social status can be seen as major rewards

obtained via occupation Occupational earnings scale: An updated and extended

version of the Nickell scale the average hourly earnings of all employees, men and

women, working full-time it provides a score for each of the 77 SOC90 minor

occupational groups Occupational status scale: Chan – Goldthorpe scale

extracting principal dimension from data on social interaction among members of occupations (close friendship)

provides scores for 31 occupational categories (either SOC90 minor groups or combinations of them)


Earnings and status hierarchies: different ones

• The occupational earnings and occupational status hierarchies, although weakly correlated, are still clearly different scales.

Eg. when cross-classifying all jobs ever held by NCDS men aged 16-46, just over 25% of all men were on the main diagonal; over a half of men are in occupations that yield higher

earnings relative to their status; Under 25% of men in occupations with lower earnings

than their status.


Labour market conditions at entry

1946 cohort 1958 cohort 1970 cohort

Left school Unemp rate %



15 (1961) 2.0 16 (1974) 3.0 16 (1986) 11.8

18 (1964) 1.8 18 (1976) 5.8 18 (1989) 8.6

21 (1967) 2.5 21 (1979) 4.2 21 (1991) 10.4


Labour market conditions over cohorts’ life-courses

Cohort 1946 aged 22-34




Economic conditions: Growth in GDPCohort 1946: LM entry Cohort 1958: LM entry Cohort 1970: LM entry

Cohort 1946 aged 22-34 Cohort 1958 aged 22-34 Cohort 1970 aged 22-34


Occupational earnings attainment over ageMEN WOMEN


Occupational status attainment over ageMEN WOMEN


A typology of occupational histories, ages 16 to 34

Steadily upward: individual has experienced one or more upward occupational moves, but no downward occupational move.

Unstable upward: individual has experienced either upward or downward mobility or both, but most recent job falls into a higher occupational level than his/her first job.

Steadily downward: individual has experienced one or more downward occupational moves, but no upward occupational move.

Unstable downward: an individual has experienced either upward or downward mobility or both, but his/her most recent job is in a lower occupational level than the first job.

Stable/counter mobile: an individual has not experienced any occupational mobility or has experienced either upward or downward mobility or both, but his/her first and most recent jobs are in the same level of the occupational scale.


Work-life occupational earnings mobility


Work-life occupational status mobility


Two scales: differing patterns of gender differencesCoefficients for gender (woman=1)

Dependent variable: typology

Occupational

earnings scale

Occupational status scale

Cohort 1946

Stable/Counter mobile (ref.)

Steadily upward-

0.01 0.61**

Unstable upward -1.32 ** -0.27

Unstable downward -1.94 ** -1.30 **

Steadily downward 0.24 * -0.58**

Cohort 1958


Steadily upward-

0.39** 0.48

**

Unstable upward -1.02 ** -0.41 **

Unstable downward -1.08 ** -1.32 **

Steadily downward 0.15 -0.49**

Cohort 1970


Steadily upward-

0.35** 0.41

**

Unstable upward -0.24 * 0.17

Unstable downward -0.15 -0.76 **

Steadily downward 0.03 -0.40**

Multinomial logistic regression,dependent variable: the typology; separately for each cohort

Covariates in the model: -gender,

- first occupational status, -only full-time work over the career (dummy),-work experience

- education at LM entry, - father's social class:managerial & professional(dummy)


The role of education and career entry

Multinomial regression: Dependent variable: the 5-fold typology Covariates: education, first occupational status,

only full-time work over the career, father’s class: managerial & professional

Separately for cohorts and genders Separately for the earnings and the status scale Calculating predicted proportions of career types

for differing levels of education for differing levels of first occupation


The role of education 1946 cohort: Remarkably stable career for degree-holders (low

rates of upward/downward mobility) 1958 cohort: very unstable career regardless of level of

qualification (especially for women with part-time experience and men)

For the less well educated, higher rates of downward mobility, especially in the 1958 cohort

For the tertiary educated, higher rates of upward mobility, but for vast majority of 1958 cohort, upward moves are followed by

downward moves much higher probability in 1970 cohort of a steadily upward career

(especially for men) Generally, stronger effects of education for women in all

cohorts


The first occupations - striking gender differences Earnings hierarchy:

far greater immobility at the bottom of the hierarchy for women than men, especially for women with some part-time experience

women’s chances of mobility out of the bottom level of the earnings hierarchy are even getting worse

However, in case of the status scale women’s chances for mobility out of the bottom are much higher

than men’s, even if they experienced part-time work over their careers

Women and men, who start out at the top, tend to have relatively stable careers; but this is much more apparent in the 1946 and the 1970 than in the 1958 cohort


Conclusions Occupational status:

women are more likely than men to move upwards bad effects of part-time work are deteriorating over time

Occupational earnings: women are less likely than men to move upwards, and are

more likely to move downwards women’s chances of moving out of the bottom are getting

worse on average, declining gender differences in this respect

Gender differences in career mobility: depending on how we measure them


Conclusions

The 1958 cohort: very unstable occupational careers, especially for men, at all levels of qualification, and regardless of the occupational levels at career entry: the effects of economic circumstances under

which they developed their early careers

Documents

Following lives from birth and through the adult years Erzsébet Bukodi and Shirley Dex GeNet Final Conference Cambridge, 26-27 March