World Politics
- World Politics / Volume 59 / Issue 01 / October 2006, pp 142-175
- Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2006
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/wp.2007.0016 (About DOI), Published online: 13 June 2011
Research Article
Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism. A Study of Occupational Segregation by Sex in Advanced Industrial Societies
Margarita Estévez-Abea1*
a1 Harvard University, mestevez@wcfia.harvard.edu
Abstract
This article explores the unintended gendered consequences of employment protection and vocational training systems. It develops a micrologic of skill investment by workers and employers to identify the mechanism by which specific skills become disadvantageous for women. The central claim of the article is that institutions that encourage male investment in specific skills exacerbate occupational sex segregation. The article finds that coordinated market economies, because of their robust institutional protection of male skill investments, are generally more sex segregating than are liberal market economies. The empirical section provides cross-sectional analyses of advanced industrial countries.
Margarita Estévez-Abe is an associate professor of political economy in the department of government at Harvard University. She is the author Welfare and Capitalism in Postwar Japan (forthcoming) and is currently working on a book titled, “Gendering the Varieties of Capitalism.” She can be reached at mestevez@wcfia.harvard.edu.
* I would like to thank Jorge Dominguez, Peter Hall, Cathie Jo Martin, Ken Schevejohn Skrentny, and Kathleen Thelen for their detailed comments on the earlier version of the article. I have also benefited greatly from suggestions from the anonymous reviewers and comments from Mary Brinton, Maria Charles, Yui Hirohashi, Mala Htun, Torben Iversen, Katerina Linos, Lisa Martin, Pippa Norris, Ann Orloff, and Frances Rosenbluth. Special thanks to Glyn Morgan, Susan Pharr, and David Soskice for encouraging me to explore the study of women.
