The Effects of Industrial, Occupational, and Sex Stratification on Wages in Blue-Collar Markets

Abstract

Sociological and economic models of income determination are reviewed: the former lack comprehensiveness and precision and the latter fail to consider social structural variables. A structural theory is proposed which considers the economic stratification of industrial sectors, occupational stratification, and the sexual stratification of society. The data show through the estimation of multiple regression models, that the human capital economic theory is less powerful than a structural-stratification theory in explaining variance in earnings for a national sample of manual workers. Lowest incomes are found in economically weak sectors with unorganized occupational groups disproportionately composed of women workers.