O.4 Returns to Education for Females in Selected Countries, 2007–15 xxvi O.5 Decomposition of Occupations in Women’s and Total Employment Worldwide, by Broad Category and Country Income Level, 2017 xxvii O.6 Relationships of GVC Activities and Country Roles to Occupational Skill and Country Income Levels xxix 1.1 The Path from Jobs to Careers for US Women in the Twentieth Century

FIGURE 1.1 The Path from Jobs to Careers for US Women in the Twentieth Century

Female labor force participation

Informal and agricultural work Identity and high-skill occupations

JOBS Factory work Mid-skill services

Institutional reform Secondary education CAREERS

National income

Sources: Based roughly on Goldin (1995, 2006). Note: The shading of the stages represents the gradual transition, in a probabilistic sense, from jobs (lighter) to careers (darker).

Phase II. In the early 1900s, the expansion of clerical jobs offered a more pleasant alternative to factory work. Goldin (2006) argues that these working environments helped to ease the social stigma that had discouraged women from working in the formal labor market. At the same time, educational opportunities expanded, and women gained what economists call “general” skills that could be applied to a wide range of industries.

The shift from Phase I to Phase II (1890–1950) was associated with a significant shift across several indicators related to education, marriage, and the composition of women’s employment in specific industries. Specifically, there was a decline in the share of employed (nonfarm) females in manufacturing, accompanied by a rise in both the share of services workers who were female and the share of females who worked in services. In the United States, this trend was related to the increased availability of clerical work. When women started working in clerical occupations, single women led the way, but later in the 1900s, it became the norm to find married women in these positions.

As secondary education expanded between 1910 and 1930, clerical workers earned higher wages, and more women could enter the workforce. In 1890, 32 percent of (nonfarm) employed females had worked in manufacturing and 4 percent as clerical workers; by 1920, these shares were 26 percent and 22 percent, respectively. By 1950, the share of women in manufacturing dipped to 22 percent and those in clerical work rose to nearly 28 percent (Goldin 1984). Similarly, between 1890 and 1920, females’ share of total manufacturing employment dropped from 20 percent to 15 percent, and their

share of all clerical workers increased from 15 percent to 48 percent. By 1950, females made up 62 percent of all clerical employment.

Phase III. The next phase (1950–70) included rising education levels and falling legal and other barriers to women’s long-run attachment to the labor force. Throughout these years, the reduction of formal barriers to work and the expansion of opportunities in higher (postsecondary) education helped women shift from clerical positions into mid-skill services (such as teaching, nursing, social work, and library services) that required more investment in human capital. Even so, these occupations were characterized by intermittent interruptions in labor force participation (such as for childrearing). Women could leave and return to the labor force without losing too much human capital because their general skills were not specific to a particular employer. These changes laid the foundation for what Goldin (2006) termed a “quiet revolution” in women’s employment during Phase IV.

Phase IV. Starting in the late 1970s and extending into the twenty-first century, several fundamental changes occurred in women’s employment and family relationships that characterize the “quiet revolution.” One of the most important was the emergence of a sense of identity that came with work. Women invested in human capital with the expectation of long-term, consistent participation in the labor market. Another key change was that increases in their spouses’ income were no longer associated with lower labor force participation. On the contrary, women’s labor force participation became positively associated with their mates’ income. In addition, women acquired a greater sense of identity within their occupations. Although career aspirations are achieved in different ways (Goldin 2021), a rising sense of identity tied to work increasingly motivated women to enter the labor force. Their income became less of a substitute for spousal income and more of a complement to it.

What Goldin describes as “identity” is related to a large and growing body of literature on female empowerment. Being formally employed as a single woman, or delaying entry into the workforce and marriage while pursuing a university education, offers a woman the opportunity to develop an identity apart from her parents and before marriage. Between the extremes of working because they have to and working because they want to, people experience a transition in mindset that employment, whether because of wages or skills, creates a greater sense of self-worth from being able to contribute to family, the workplace, or society.

Overall, these four phases represent a gradual transition from jobs to careers for the American woman, Goldin contends. The shading of figure 1.1 represents that transition, whereby factory work can include careers, and even occupations that some people associate with “careers” might be considered by others as “jobs.” Importantly, the movement along the horizontal axis is also associated with rising education levels. That is, as women move from jobs to careers, they invest more in education. This is not to say that women in occupations that do not require much education do not consider their work to be a career, but rather that occupations requiring less education are less likely to be considered careers by most people.