Occupational segregation and the gender gap in workplace authority: National versus local labor markets

Previous research linking occupational gender segregation to the workplace authority gap assumes that the effect of gender composition is invariant across occupations, ignoring the important distinction of whether an occupation’s rel-evant labor market is local or national. We offer a new method for defining occupational labor markets and hypothesize that the effect of occupation gen-der composition on the authority gap will be strongest in national labor market occupations. Both sexes ’ odds of possessing work authority decline with the representation of women; this effect is strongest in the more desirable, national labor market occupations. Assuming occupations are part of one labor mar-ket results in understating the gender composition penalty for national labor market occupations. KEY WORDS: occupational gender segregation; workplace authority; labor markets. The capacity to exercise authority over organizational resources and coworkers is central to workers ’ overall work experience (Halaby, 1979; Reskin and Padavic, 1994; Reskin and Ross, 1992). Wright et al. (1995) note that authority is a highly valued attribute of jobs because it is status-conferring and shapes how financial rewards are allocated to workers. Fur-thermore, they argue that the paucity of women occupying authority posi-tions in the workplace is not merely an instance of gender inequality, but a significant cause of gender disparities as well (407). The importance of legitimate control over resources and workplace power for understandin