Occupational Gender Segregation Index
Occupational gender segregation indices measure how unevenly women and men are distributed across occupations. The most widely used is the Duncan and Duncan index of dissimilarity, introduced in 1955, which gives the share of women (or men) who would have to change occupations for the two distributions to match. Together with margin-free alternatives and decompositions into horizontal and vertical components, these indices are the standard tools for quantifying the sex segregation of labour markets.
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Sources
- Duncan, O. D., & Duncan, B. (1955). A methodological analysis of segregation indexes. American Sociological Review, 20(2), 210–217. DOI: 10.2307/2088328 ↗
- Charles, M., & Grusky, D. B. (2004). Occupational Ghettos: The Worldwide Segregation of Women and Men. Stanford University Press. ISBN: 9780804748803
- Blackburn, R. M., Jarman, J., & Brooks, B. (2000). The puzzle of gender segregation and inequality: A cross-national analysis. European Sociological Review, 16(2), 119–135. DOI: 10.1093/esr/16.2.119 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Occupational Gender Segregation Indices (Duncan Dissimilarity and Related Measures). ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/gender-studies/occupational-gender-segregation-index
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