'Concealable Stigma and Occupational Segregation: Toward a Theory of Gay and Lesbian Occupations' by Andras Tilcsik, Michel Anteby and Carly R. Knight in (2015) XX
Administrative Science Quarterly 1–36
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Numerous scholars have noted the disproportionately high number of gay and
lesbian workers in certain occupations, but systematic explanations for this
type of occupational segregation remain elusive. Drawing on the literatures on
concealable stigma and stigma management, we develop a theoretical framework
predicting that gay men and lesbians will concentrate in occupations that
provide a high degree of task independence or require a high level of social perceptiveness,
or both. Using several distinct measures of sexual orientation, and
controlling for potential confounds, such as education, urban location, and
regional and demographic differences, we find support for these predictions
across two nationally representative surveys in the United States for the period
2008–2010. Gay men are more likely to be in female-majority occupations than
are heterosexual men, and lesbians are more represented in male-majority
occupations than are heterosexual women, but even after accounting for this
tendency, common to both gay men and lesbians is a propensity to concentrate
in occupations that provide task independence or require social perceptiveness,
or both. This study offers a theory of occupational segregation on the
basis of minority sexual orientation and holds implications for the literatures on
stigma, occupations, and labor markets.
The authors note
Occupational segregation—the systematic distribution of people across occupations
based on demographic characteristics—is a pervasive and consequential
phenomenon in contemporary organizations. The concentration of
members of a demographic group, such as women or racial minorities, in certain
occupations profoundly shapes individuals’ social and economic prospects
(England, Chassie, and McCormack, 1982; Reskin, 1993; Mandel, 2013).
Likewise, occupational segregation has important consequences for organizations,
such as narrowing the talent pools from which employers might hire and
shaping the demographic profile of different positions and professional groups
within organizations (Dobbin et al., 1993; Kalev, Dobbin, and Kelly, 2006;
Barbulescu and Bidwell, 2013; Bidwell et al., 2013).
The occupational segregation of gay and lesbian workers — "one of the largest,
but least studied, minority groups in the workforce" (Ragins, 2004: 35) —
presents an unresolved puzzle for researchers. Since the late nineteenth century,
numerous scholars have noted the unusually high concentration of gay or
lesbian workers in certain occupations (e.g., Ellis, 1897; Baumle, Compton, and
Poston, 2009), but systematic explanations for this phenomenon remain elusive.
This question is particularly puzzling because, at first glance, these occupations
seem to have little in common, ranging from some blue-collar trades
(e.g., various repairers and mechanics) to certain service jobs (e.g., flight attendants
and massage therapists) and white-collar occupations (such as psychologists
and postsecondary teachers).
To date, the most consistent account of this phenomenon has been that lesbian
and gay workers are often found in occupations that are traditionally associated
with the opposite sex (Baumle, Compton, and Poston, 2009). Although
predictions based on this observation account for some of the important patterns
in gay and lesbian occupational segregation, they leave a great deal of variance
unexplained. Recent U.S. data suggest that nearly half of gay men are
actually in occupations in which men are the majority of workers, and twothirds
of lesbians work in female-majority occupations. The tendency of lesbians
and gay men to cross occupational gender lines also cannot account for
professional fields in which both lesbian and gay workers are overrepresented,
such as psychology, counseling, law, and social work (Baumle, Compton, and
Poston, 2009). While numerous other explanations have also been proposed
for gay and lesbian occupational patterns, many of these apply to just a small
set of occupations and are relevant to either gay men or to lesbians (e.g.,
Be´ rube´ , 1990, 2011; Chauncey, 1994), rather than capturing the drivers of segregation
common to both populations.
To provide a more comprehensive explanation for lesbian and gay occupational
segregation, we conceptualize minority sexual orientation as a potential
source of concealable stigma (Smart and Wegner, 1999; Ragins, 2008), that is,
a socially stigmatized characteristic that is not readily apparent to observers.
We draw on Goffman’s (1963) classic insight that a principal challenge for individuals
with concealable stigma is to manage information about their stigmatized
status in social interactions. This need for stigma management — both at
work and beyond — is likely to have important consequences for occupational
segregation. In particular, it might lead to an overrepresentation of gay and lesbian
workers in occupations that provide a high level of task independence (i.e.,
freedom to perform one’s tasks without substantially depending on others) or
require a high level of social perceptiveness (i.e., accurate anticipation and reading
of others’ reactions), or both.
Task independence would allow these workers to manage information about
their stigmatized status more effectively in the workplace, while also mitigating
the risks associated with disclosure. Social perceptiveness is likely to emerge
as an important social adaptation or coping skill for many gay and lesbian people
at a relatively young age. Addressing the dilemma of disclosure versus concealment
across social situations requires sensitivity in order to read and
anticipate others’ reactions (Radkowsky and Siegel, 1997; Pachankis, 2007),
which in turn are valued behaviors in occupations that require social
perceptiveness.
We test our predictions with two distinct population samples and multiple
measures of sexual orientation. Our first data source is the 2008–2010
American Community Survey (ACS), which provides a nationally representative
sample of nearly five million people in the United States and allows us to systematically
identify individuals living with a same-sex partner. While the size
and quality of this sample offer unique advantages, one limitation is that these
data capture only those lesbian and gay workers who are members of a cohabiting
same-sex couple. Thus we also test our hypotheses on a second sample,
the fourth wave of the U.S. National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health,
collected in 2008–2009. Although this sample is restricted to respondents
between the ages of 26 and 31, it effectively complements the ACS data by
providing indicators of sexual orientation independent of partnered status. We
combined both samples with data from the Occupational Information Network
(O*NET), the primary source of survey-based information about the characteristics
of occupations in the U.S. economy (Liu and Grusky, 2013). These data
allow us to test the hypothesis that common to both gay men and lesbians is a
propensity to concentrate in occupations that provide task independence or
require social perceptiveness, or both.
They comment further
Building on Goffman’s (1963) classic insights into concealable stigma, we identified
two patterns that underlie the occupational landscape for gay and lesbian
workers. Fundamental to both of our hypotheses is the idea that occupational
segregation is shaped by gay and lesbian workers’ adaptation to potential discrimination
and the dilemmas of disclosure that they face both in the workplace
and beyond. Our results suggest that this framework can parsimoniously
explain a large set of seemingly random patterns across the occupational spectrum.
While gay men are more likely to be in female-dominated occupations
than are heterosexual men, and lesbians are more highly represented in maledominated
occupations than are heterosexual women, common to both gay
men and lesbians is a tendency to concentrate in occupations that provide task
independence or require social perceptiveness, or both.
A focus on social perceptiveness and task independence can also explain
many previous observations about lesbian and gay jobs. As noted earlier, for
example, one finding that a sex-typing perspective could not account for is that
both gay and lesbian workers are often concentrated in professions that focus
on creativity, psychology, counseling, law, and social work (Baumle, Compton,
and Poston, 2009). Clearly, working in these fields requires a non-trivial degree
of social perceptiveness, perhaps most obviously in the case of psychology,
counseling, and social work, but also in creative or artistic fields, in which perception
of social conditions and audiences plays an important role. Some of
these fields (e.g., creative jobs and psychology) also tend to provide a relatively
high level of task independence.
Similarly, many artistic, service-oriented, and care-focused occupations commonly
associated with gay men require an above-average level of social perceptiveness.
Awareness and anticipation of others’ reactions and mental
states — whether they are patients in a healthcare setting, passengers on a
plane, audience members in a theatre, or students in a classroom — are relatively
important components of many such jobs. Likewise, the (only partially
accurate) observation that lesbians might be drawn to highly ‘‘masculine’’ bluecollar
work can be explained in a more nuanced and empirically accurate way if
one notes that lesbian workers are especially likely to be found in those maledominated,
blue-collar jobs that provide an above-average degree of task independence.
It is quite striking, for example, that four of the five male-majority
occupations with the highest proportion of lesbian workers are various
repairers and installers with an above-average degree of task independence
(table 2). Thus rather than simply reflecting an innate sensibility of gay men for
artistic or caring jobs, or a natural attraction of lesbians to ‘‘masculine’’ jobs,
these occupational patterns might be more effectively understood in terms of
social perceptiveness and task independence, factors that reflect social adaptation
to concealable stigma in the workplace and beyond.
The notion that social perceptiveness due to the need for stigma management
plays a key role in occupational segregation suggests implications for
both the past and the future of gay and lesbian work. For example, the labor
historian Berube’s (2011: 265) research into the gay labor movement led him to
ask, ‘‘How do people find queer work and how do they make these jobs their
own?’’ By ‘‘queer work,’’ Berube´ meant work that is often performed by, or
has the reputation of being performed by, homosexual men and women. His
question stemmed from, for example, the observed concentration of gay men
in a handful of military jobs during World War II and in steward jobs on ocean
liners after the war. By identifying some possible dimensions of ‘‘queer work,’’
our study’s findings start to answer Berube’s question.
Our study suggests, for example, that the ‘‘special talents’’ that some
observers attributed to gay soldiers during World War II might not be fully imaginary
(Be´ rube´ , 1990: 57). Being a hospital corpsman, a navy yeoman, or a chaplain’s
assistant—jobs in which gay men were believed to congregate in the
military—may have required a higher degree of social perceptiveness than
many other military occupations. Attending to wounded soldiers’ medical and
emotional needs, to navy officers’ clerical needs, or to soldiers’ religious comfort
are tasks in which the understanding of others’ needs, reactions, emotions,
and cognitive states is likely to play a non-trivial role. Similarly, social perceptiveness
is likely to have been integral to the work of ship stewards, a servicefocused
role involving frequent interactions with passengers. It is important to
emphasize, however, that what earlier observers saw as a perhaps innate
‘‘special talent’’ we conceptualize as the result of social adaptation to concealable
stigma.
One implication of this view is that, in the long run, the possible
de-stigmatization of minority sexual orientation may weaken the relationships
that we have documented. In particular, in societies that become more tolerant
of same-sex relationships, the need for stigma management in everyday social
interactions (Goffman, 1963) might fade over time. Intriguingly, as broader tolerance
alleviates the intense and ongoing need for managing stigma-related
information in everyday life, it might also lead to a relative ‘‘deskilling’’ of gay
and lesbian workers with respect to social perceptiveness. Put otherwise,
these workers might lose their distinctiveness (Anteby and Anderson, 2014).
At the same time, the patterns that we observed are likely to remain in place
for a significant period of time. Even if de-stigmatization took place rapidly,
broad occupational patterns are slow to change because they continue to
reflect earlier educational and career choices and because network-based
mechanisms (such as homophily in job referrals) might also help maintain segregation
patterns that had initially emerged as a response to stigmatization (see
Marquis and Tilcsik, 2013).
