Sex and Gender Families and Aging

Just 20 years ago, in most states a woman could not sign an apartment lease, get a credit rating, or apply for a loan unless her husband or a male relative agreed to share the responsibility. Similarly, a 1965 study found that fifty one percent of men though women were "temperamentally unfit for management." There can be no doubt that we have progressed a long way from these ideas in the last three decades. However, it is …

…labor market and in pre-market training and education constrain their choices to a narrow set of alternatives." Thus, it is apparent that discrimination plays a significant role in maintaining a sex- segregated work force. Encouragingly, the evidence also shows that the mere existence of anti- discrimination laws may help foster change, either because employers fear reprisals for bias or because such laws help reshape their expectations about what it is acceptable for women to do.