TIME, SPACE, AND THE OCCUPATIONAL SEGREGATION OF WOMEN - A CRITIQUE OF HUMAN-CAPITAL THEORY

Human capital theory is one frequently invoked explanation for women's position in the paid labor force. This explanation sees the occupational segregation of women largely as the outcome of women's long-range rational decisions to choose jobs that will accommodate their absences from the labor force for child bearing and rearing. We agree with the human capital theory's emphasis on women's domestic labor as a major source of occupational segregation. We believe, however, that the human capital argument highlights the wrong set of variables (those related to women's labor force discontinuity) and overlooks those more immediate geographic factors that contribute forcefully to occupational segregation. Using detailed interview data from a representative sample of households living in the Worcester, Massachusetts urban area, we show that occupational segregation is related to the day-to-day space-time constraints women face rather than to time out of the labor force. © 1991.