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ABSTRACTThis study presents a path analytic model of status expectations that focuses on how sex influences the educational and occupational expectations of a large sample of American adolescents. While female and male expectations can be predicted by the same model variables, the process is by no means identical for both sexes. Exogenous background variables have greater total effects for females, while intervening social-psychological and achievement related variables have substantially lesser effects for females than males. The same-sex parent is found to have a greater effect on adolescent expectations than the opposite-sex parent. No significant sex differences are found in the mean level of either expectation, but the distribution of occupational choices parallel the current sex segregation of the occupational sector. Further, relative to academic achievement, the females have lower expectations than the males. These results are interpreted as consequences of traditional sex role socialization.Research on social inequality has shown that women are underrepresented in the higher echelons of the American occupational structure. Women constitute approximately 40 percent of the labor force; more than half of all adult women work outside of the home. Yet only 8 percent of all physicians, dentists, and other related practicioners are women; the ratio of women to men in managerial and administrative positions is low (.20), and even lower (.05) among lawyers and judges (Featherman and Hauser; U.S. Bureau of the Census). Undoubtedly, the relatively low occupational attainment of women, given their large numbers in the labor force, reflects in large part the discrimination they encounter seeking work and on the job: among other things, discriminatory employment practices severely limit women's occupational choices and channel them into positions with highly restricted chances for promotion.
Educational-Occupational Expectations / 165whole story, for it would be a mistake to assume that restrictions on female occupational attainment begin when women enter the job market. Quite the contrary; barriers to female achievement occur early in the occupational attainment process, long before women enter the labor force as adults.We will argue in this paper that sex differences in occupational attainment are, in part, a consequence of the socialization of females and males into traditional sex roles, a process which begins early in a child's life (Bardwick; Hoffman; Maccoby and Jacklin). Conventional sex role socialization incorporates interaction patterns and belief systems which diff...
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