Was Attainment of the "American Dream" Gendered? Gender Differences in Occupational Mobility in the Early 20th Century

Sharon Sassler, Ohio State University
Leanna M. Mellott, Ohio State University
Christie D. Batson, Ohio State University

Was the American dream of upward mobility, achieved through occupational improvement, a reality for women as well as men in the early 20th century? Previous studies of historical occupational transmission have mostly focused on men, examining improvements over generations or for limited father-son pairs. We expand this framework to study occupational transmission from fathers to daughters, comparing the pace of improvement across generations for a variety of different ethnic and race groups. Data are from the nationally representative 1920 IPUMS Census. A unique contribution of this analysis is our ability to examine immigrant adaptation through four generations. Preliminary results indicate that working daughters' occupational scores were significantly higher than were sons', though less of daughters' attainment was attributable to father's status. Daughters who were gainfully employed may have been selectively different from non-working daughters. Our findings demonstrate the importance of incorporating women into historical mobility frameworks.