A COMPARISON OF THE SEX-TYPE OF OCCUPATIONAL ASPIRATIONS AND SUBSEQUENT ACHIEVEMENT

This article further explores the connection between the sex-type of a girl's occupational aspirations and the sex-type of her subsequent oc cupation achieved in the labor market. The authors replicate previous work by Jerry Jacobs and build on it by using more recent data and an alternative methodology to address this issue. Two cohorts of data fro m the National Longitudinal Surveys are employed to estimate transitio n probability matrices between the sex-types of aspired occupations an d the sex-types of achieved occupations. Then, multivariate models of the probability of entering a traditional (i.e., female-dominated) or nontraditional (i.e., male-dominated) occupation are estimated. The au thors find that Jacobs actually overestimated the relationship between aspirations and achievement and that this relationship has, in some w ays, grown weaker over time.