Carrie L. Alexandrowicz, Brown University
Early labor force participation among youth in the United States
marks the important transition from education to paid employment.
However, early jobs – as well as labor force participation across the
entire life course – are both highly stratified by gender and greatly
disparate in their social and economic returns. The School-to-Work
Opportunities Act of 1994 has provided millions of dollars in state and
federal funding to provide students with the vocational resources to
overcome existing structural inequalities and enable the transition into a
more diverse workforce. This paper uses data from the National
Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to determine if participation in various
school-to-work programs influences women’s early labor force entry into
gender-segregated jobs. Results suggest that school-to-work programs
have little influence on gendered early employment, suggesting a need for
more effective implementation of career programs and the urgency for
school-to-work transition structures which broaden occupational
opportunities for all underrepresented populations.
Early labor force participation among youth in the United States is a highly
transitional and highly gendered phenomenon. Even before formal labor market
experience begins, male adolescents are likely to enter into maintenance or goods-
producing positions while female adolescents conversely enter into service and childcare
positions (Rothstein 2001).
This occupational sex segregation is not only a characteristic of early jobs; it
remains pervasive throughout the adult life course. Women represent 46% of the current
labor force yet an estimated four-fifths of female employees are concentrated in only five
occupational sectors - administrative support, service workers, executives, retail workers,
and miscellaneous “professional specialties” – traditionally the most accessible and
socially acceptable opportunities outside of the home (US Census Bureau 2002). This
extreme gender-typing has not only led to disparate social cultures, it also has major
The effect of School-to-Work programs on entry into nontraditional employment:
Do education- and employment-based initiatives influence the transition to a stratified workforce?