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Abstract
Sex-linked occupational differentiation and female labor force participation are predicted from ecological factors and community structural characteristics. In the proposed model, ecological variables were expected to influence community structural characteristics such as family composition, demographic and economic variables, and rural community industrial structures. Community structures and ecological factors were expected to influence female work-force participation. While all of these variables were expected to influence occupational differentiation (odds of female employment at four status levels), female employment rates were expected to intervene, mediating the effects of all other influences upon the odds that females would be found working at various occupational levels.
U.S. Census data for 89 Nebraska nonmetropolitan counties, 1980, are used to test the model. Results of a three-stage multiple regression analysis suggest the model requires respecification. As predicted, ecological factors such as population size, location, population potential, and percent of population that is rural influence most community structures. However, ecology influences female employment indirectly through effects upon rural family, economic and industrial structures. Contrary to expectations, occupational differentiation responds only to the influence of ecological and industrial structural factors.
While the proposed model had suggested that female labor force participation would mediate the effects of ecological and community structures on occupational differentiation, results of this analysis clearly dispel this expectation. Instead, ecological factors influence occupational differentiation both directly and indirectly through their shaping of community labor structures. There is no evidence that increased female employment influences their odds of employment at high-status levels (or any other intermediate- or low-status level). Thus, female opportunity for employment in rural communities is largely a result of the geographical and ecological factors that determine development of community business and industry.
Indicators for occupational differentiation (estimated from a saturated log-linear model) show that rural females have greatest odds of employment in clerical, sales, and technician occupations.
