Moving up down in the mine: Sex segregation in underground coal mining

Sex segregation at the job level among blue-collar women in rural labor markets has yet to be fully explored. This study employs both individualist theories of human capital and sex-role spillover and structuralist theories from the socialist feminist perspective emphasizing the formal and informal organizational factors operating within a patriarchal capitalist society to explain job-level sex segregation among underground coal miners.;Both quantitative and qualitative data on women in coal mining are used to evaluate these theories. A logistic regression analysis performed on data obtained in 1986 by the U.S. Bureau of Mines demonstrates that while human capital variables are predictive of a miner's job rank, variation in job rank attributed to gender is even greater. For men, training and experience in mining combine to increase the probability of being in a more skilled job in a coal mine. Age and seniority are curvilinearly related to the variation in men's job rank. For women, only age accounts for their advancement such that younger, not older women who have slightly more mining experience, occupy the more skilled positions in the work place. These findings suggest that in terms of job advancement men enjoy a greater return on their human capital investments than women and that factors other than those representing a miner's human capital are affecting women's positions underground more than men's.;Qualitative data consisting of in-depth interviews with 10 coal mining women and observations made at a single mining establishment in central Appalachia were obtained. The analyses of these data reveal the power of male sex-role expectations for female work behavior in the form of sex-role spillover. In addition, formal factors combine with sex-role stereotyping to reinforce the division of labor between the sexes underground. Over time women have experienced fewer instances of sexual harassment. However, negative stereotypes are sufficiently persistent to result in discriminatory practices where certain formal factors of advancement are concerned.