Women in Nontraditional and Traditional Blue Collar Occupations, 1975-1978

This three-year longitudinal study examined the experiences of women working in nontraditional and traditional blue collar jobs. Nontraditional jobs included occupations such as plumbers, electricians, cable splicers, and forklift operators. Participants were selected from a cross-section of training and employment settings from the three metropolitan areas of California: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. They all were in a training or on-the-job program in a skilled or semiskilled occupation in the fall of 1975. A control group of women in more traditional service occupations such as cosmetology was interviewed during the first year. In the winter and spring of 1975 and 1976, 117 women participated in a two to three hour interview (86 involved in nontraditional blue collar work, and 31 involved in traditional, female-dominated, skilled and semi-skilled jobs). The interview focused on the following areas: childhood experiences and family background; general work history and how respondent became involved in blue collar work; work roles and family roles; current work and training experiences; and relationships with people on the job. In the spring of 1977, 61 of the original respondents were reinterviewed (51 nontraditional, and 10 traditional). This interview focused on the following areas: satisfactions and dissatisfactions with current employment; skills and training necessary for the job; support networks; and work and family roles. In the spring of 1978, telephone interviews were conducted with 54 of the original 86 women involved in nontraditional blue collar employment. This interview focused on the following areas: current employment; changes in job type, classification or salary, and/or employer; respondent's reasons for staying with/changing jobs; and future employment prospects. The Murray Archive holds additional analogue materials for this study (interview transcripts from the three waves of data ). If you would like to access this material, please apply to use the data