Social Closure

Social closure is a process through which some groups, implicitly or explicitly, draw categorical boundaries around themselves and others to monopolize resources. Social closure has two faces: opportunity-hoarding for actors’ categorical in-group and exclusion of the out-group. We explore closure case studies around criminal records, occupational licensing, education, non-compete employment contracts, job segregation, sexual harassment, access to science and technology jobs, and discrimination based on race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. The case studies also highlight the important role of organizational and institutional variation in the degree and incidence of closure processes. We conclude that closure processes can be challenged by usurpationary movements, institutional regulation, and interactional resistance.

Vulnerability of Latin American Migrant Families Headed by Women in Spain During the Great Recession: A Couple-Level Analysis

One of the outcomes of the Great Recession has been the emerging pattern of households maintained exclusively by women. The analysis of intracouple characteristics is crucial in the context of job segregation by gender and by immigrant origin, such as in Spain. Using the panel version of the Spanish Labor Force Survey from 2008 to 2015, we analyze the transition of dual-earner couples to female-earner couples among Latin American and Spanish-born households. Our results suggest that migrant vulnerability is not only a consequence of a segregated labor market by gender and origin but is also the result of the partners’ relative occupational and family characteristics. We show that, unlike Spanish-born couples, the risk of Latin American families becoming female-headed is higher for those couples in which the female partner has the weakest position in the occupational scale and for those with children in the household.

Organizing the Sexual Division of Labor

This chapter examines the effects of union organization on women workers and sexual division of labor, focusing on the 1930s and 1940s along with earlier developments in U.S. women's labor history. It draws on feminist scholarship that argued that labor unions' efforts to exclude women from membership had helped to consolidate patterns of job segregation by gender in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After reviewing theories of occupational segregation by sex, especially with regards to the role of unions in the formation of labor-market boundaries between “women's work” and “men's work,” the chapter discusses the ways that the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations (initially called Committe for Industrial Organization) contributed to the sexual division of labor. It argues that industrial unions had the opportunity to challenge job segregation by sex during the 1930s and 1940s, but instead helped consolidate it. In both periods, the labor movement showed litte interest in recruiting women into its ranks.

Redefining “Women’s Work”

This chapter examines the sexual division of labor in the automobile industry during World War II to find out whether job segregation by gender had been dismantled during the war. It begins with a discussion of “women's work” in the auto industry in the prewar period and goes on to explore how the idiom of sex-typing of occupations was implemented and readjusted in the face of a dramatic change in the economic constraints on the sexual division of labor, along with the ensuing political struggles over the redefinition of the boundaries between “women's work” and “men's work.” It then considers the ambiguity and labor–management conflict over “women's work,” the various exclusionary tactics employed by male auto workers against women, and the disputes over the question of equal pay in the industry during the war. It also discusses the process through which war factories reproduced new patterns of job segregation by sex in the industry, instead of eliminating it.

Mom Work Versus Dad Work in Local Government

The work context reconstructs the feminine and the masculine, rendering public service a mirror of gender asymmetry. Nowhere is this clearer than in local government, where many face-to-face services are delivered. In cities and counties, the largest job categories are education and police work. Almost 90% of elementary school teachers are women and less than 12% of police officers are women. The sequelae to job segregation—overlooking the emotive component of jobs, pay inequity, and glass walls—will not change until organizational logic catches up with a more nuanced appreciation of gender.

“Looking Good and Sounding Right”

Upscale retail stores prefer to hire class-privileged workers because they embody particular styles and mannerisms that match their specialized brands. Yet retail jobs pay low wages and offer few benefits. How do these employers attract middle-class workers to these bad jobs? Drawing on interviews with retail workers and Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, the authors find that employers succeed by appealing to their consumer interests. The labor practices we identify contribute to the re-entrenchment of job segregation, race and gender discrimination, and fetishism of consumption. The conclusion argues against rewarding aesthetic labor and suggests other rationales for upgrading low-wage retail employment.