Census Finds More Women in High Jobs

The number of American women in management jobs nearly doubled during the 1980s, reflecting their rising status in the U.S. work force, a new Census report says.

The Census figures being released today also illustrate the striking deindustrialization of the U.S. economy, with employment flat in blue-collar occupations, such as equipment operators, while expanding swiftly in technical and other white-collar fields.

Labor force growth during the decade “was largely in the occupations that require academic training or an advanced education,” said John Priebe, one of the government statisticians responsible for the new Census report on occupational trends. “The one exception would be the services segment, which also grew.”

While that pattern emerged, the number of women in the executive, administrative and managerial job categories climbed 95% to nearly 6.2 million between 1980 and 1990. That easily outstripped the 17% rise in men in the same positions. At the same time, most minorities continued to make slow progress in advancing into the ranks of management.

Even with the gains by women, however, the statistics demonstrate that men continue to dominate U.S. management ranks. Of the 14.6 million Americans in those positions in 1990, nearly 58% were men, and men made up 54% of the overall civilian labor force of 123.5 million.

Moreover, experts say the Census figures probably overstate the advance of women into the corporate suite. Most evidence, they say, shows that women still are disproportionately in the lowest tiers of management and in the lowest-paying industries.

For example, a recent analysis by The Times of 1990 Census income data for California showed women earning only 69 cents for every dollar earned by men, a disparity that emerged in nearly every profession.

All the same, 1990 marked a breakthrough in the broader category of management or professional jobs. It was the first time that the average working woman was more likely to be a manager or a professional than was the average working man, even though there still are more men overall in management jobs.

That development largely stems from two factors: the new inroads by women in supervisory positions where they once were a distinct minority and the traditional large numbers of women in such professions as teaching and nursing.

“There are big changes out there,” said Clifford C. Clogg, a labor force expert at Pennsylvania State University. “There are bigger numbers of women entering these (management and professional) occupations, which, generally speaking, are considered the best occupations in terms of income, job benefits and authority.”

All told, by 1990, 26.8% of the women in the labor force were in management or the professions. But among men, 24.1% were in those categories.

In 1980, by contrast, 20.7% of the women in the labor force were in managerial or professional jobs, versus 22.5% for men.

For most minority groups, however, there was little to suggest that they were catching up with white America in the upper ranks of the work force. All of the racial and ethnic groups reflected in the Census posted small gains in their percentages in managerial and professional jobs.

For example, the percentage of whites in those categories climbed from 23.4% in 1980 to 27.7% in 1990. At the same time, the percentages rose from 11.5% to 13.1% for Latinos, from 13% to 16.5% for non-Latino blacks and from 15.1% to 16.9% for American Indians.

Asians and Pacific Islanders, the only group to show up more frequently than whites in managerial and professional roles, rose in that category from 28.4% to 30%.

Laurence M. Levin, a labor economist at Santa Clara University, attributed the poor showing among most minorities largely to weak enforcement of affirmative action and other minority-oriented programs in the 1980s.

“The ‘80s were a good decade for women relative to men,” but not for minorities, Levin said.

Among blacks, women outnumbered men in management and the professions, but among Asians, the pattern was the opposite. White and Latino men outnumbered their female counterparts in the managerial ranks, but greater percentages of women from both groups were in the professions.

In the overall labor force, the fastest employment growth came in technical and related fields, which posted a 43% gain. Next came the management and sales categories, which each grew by 41%.

But employment was sluggish on the farm and in the factories. The number of equipment operators declined 5% during the decade, while farm jobs grew a scant 2%. Overall, the labor force increased 18%.