Sex Segregation in U.S. Manufacturing

This study of interplant sex segregation in the U.S. manufacturing industry improves on previous work by using more detailed information on the characteristics of both workers and firms and adopting an improved measure of segregation. The data source is the Worker-Establishment Characteristics Database (a U.S. Census Bureau database) for 1990. There are three main findings. First, interplant sex segregation in the U.S. manufacturing industry is substantial, particularly among blue-collar workers. Second, even in analyses that control for a variety of plant characteristics, we find that female managers tend to work in the same plants as female supervisees. Finally, we find that interplant sex segregation can account for a substantial fraction of the male/female wage gap in the manufacturing industry, particularly among blue-collar workers