Avenues of attainment: Occupational demography and organizational careers in the California civil service

This article outlines a comprehensive approach to analyzing organizational career inequality, emphasizing interdependencies among multiple avenues of attainment: job shifts and lateral moves, within and between organizations; changes in salary and salary ceilings associated with job shifts; and with in-job salary advancement. Hypotheses regarding how occupational sex and ra ce composition affect these career outcomes are tested with data describing work histories of California state government employees. Although female- and minority-dominated occupations were disadvantaged in many respects, the ir incumbents moved among state agencies more frequently (and reaped greate r economic benefit) than did employees in occupations dominated by white ma les. Intraorganizational promotions yielded roughly comparable salary gains for incumbents of male- and female-dominated occupations, but through dist inct paths: male-dominated occupations had less frequent promotions with la rger salary increases; female-dominated occupations experienced more freque nt job shifts with smaller pay changes. Men in female-dominated occupations were shielded from many of the adverse career outcomes experienced by thei r female counterparts.