Despite dramatic increases in female participation rates, a notable and persistent feature of the Canadian labour market is the highly unequal distribution of men and women across occupations. The focus of the current paper is how to explain the observed occupational distribution of women across occupations. In particular, we assess the evidence put forward in support of the standard view within the economics profession--the human-capital notion of 'occupational choice'--and compare its explanatory power with a non-competitive approach to women's labour market opportunities, based on the notion of a labour market characterised by job rationing. / While occupational decision-making remains ill-understood, there are several reasons for believing that the subject will become more noteworthy in coming decades, not least the rumblings of the 'comparable-worth' lobby. Our investigation points to a lack of economic research in this important area, both at the aggregate level and the level of individual occupations, and suggests that greater attention should be paid not simply to empirical validation of existing theories of occupational decision-making, but also that more detailed scrutiny might be given to the few results which are available. We argue that 'discrimination' is still a powerful force within the labour market, and that women's sudden access to non-traditional occupations owes far more to shortages of men in individual markets than is typically acknowledged.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.68106 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Jarvis, Valerie |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Economics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001394621, proquestno: AAIMM94356, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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