Sex Segregation and Glass Ceilings: A Comparative Statics Model of Women's Career Opportunities in the Federal Government over a Quarter Century1

A comparative statics model is utilized to examine mechanisms of gender inequality: gender distribution (skew), gender segregation (composition), occupational captivity, hierarchical ceilings, glass ceilings, and internal labor market (ILM) structure/network linkages. The analysis examines new linkages between sex segregation and glass ceilings; two elements of sex segregation–composition and captivity; and two elements of glass ceilings–pathways inside and outside one's original ILM. Gender‐specific career trajectories were constructed to analyze women's career opportunities in 22 occupational ILMs in the U.S. federal government for two periods between 1962 and 1989, demonstrating how to extract career implications from much shorter periods of time. There is a very large differential effect by gender when staying within one's occupational ILM; however, when pathways that include changing ILMs are considered, women's opportunities to enter the top tier become almost equivalent to those for men in the second period.

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