A CROSS-NATIONAL-STUDY OF WOMEN IN PROFESSIONAL AND MANAGERIAL OCCUPATIONS

This research tests certain hypotheses derived from Chafetz, Blumberg, and world system theories regarding the distribution of women in elit e occupations. A cross-national research design was employed to test t he ability of six macrostructural and two demographic characteristics to estimate the proportion of women in professional and managerial occ upations in 57 nations. Each of the two indicators of women in elite o ccupations was entered in a multiple regression equation that includes as independent variables sex ratio, fertility rate, indicators of int ernal economic development and external economic structure, and female labor force participation rates. The variables that show consistent e ffects for women's proportion of elite occupations are the sex ratio, two indicators of internal economic structure (percentage of the workf orce in manufacturing and electric kilowatt hours consumed per capita) and one indicator of external structure (foreign investments). The fi ndings extend the understanding of how nations' macrostructural charac teristics influence women's work opportunities and of the difficulties operationalizing abstract concepts of elegant gender theories.