SOCIOECONOMIC CHANGE AND OCCUPATIONAL LOCATION FOR SUCCESSIVE COHORTS OF AMERICAN MALE AND FEMALE WORKERS

Major changes have occurred in the occupational distribution of the American workforce during the past 20 years. These changes have occurred both within the working lives of cohorts and through the process of cohort replacement. This paper uses 1973-1991 Current Population Survey data to examine the importance of within- and between-cohort change on the shifting occupational and skill distributions of men and women. Significant change is found for both genders, but it is more dramatic for women than for men, especially when the focus is on skill rather than conventionally defined occupational groups. Decompositions that capture the effects of educational upgrading and industrial restructuring show that both forces play important roles in accounting for change. Men, however, have not upgraded their occupations as fast as educational and industrial change would predict, while women have upgraded at a faster rate than implied by underlying educational and industrial trends. Historical events have influenced the evolution of careers as well as their starting point. However, while the shape of cohort career trajectories reflects both historical and life course processes, the portion of social change that can be characterized as ''uneven''-which would therefore generate interactions between age and cohort-has been a comparatively unimportant force on the evolving occupational distribution of the American workforce. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.