Task Segregation: A Mechanism for Work Inequality

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Inequality in the Workplace II

Abstract

While research has shown that various forms of segregation such as job segregation contribute to work inequality, scholars have overlooked the possibility of task segregation: when a subgroup is disproportionately allocated to spend more time doing particular tasks within a job. If these tasks are more undesirable to workers than other tasks, then the segregated subgroup may experience worse workplace outcomes. I argue that task segregation is an important inequality-generating mechanism that can explain within-job outcome differences. To examine the processes by which task segregation may emerge and lead to work inequality, I draw on an inductive, interview-based case study of female and male security screening workers at a unit of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration at a large urban airport. I discover and analyze a case of task segregation, where female screeners, relative to male screeners, were disproportionately allocated to what was perceived as an undesirable task – direct physical interaction with service-recipients (passengers) via a manual pat-down. First, I find that this task segregation emerged due to structural processes of (1) task differentiation, (2) policy-enforced division of task labor, (3) imbalance between numbers of workers and passengers, (4) operational pressures, and (5) managerial allocation decisions. Second, task segregation was linked to women’s worse work experiences because the pat-down task exposed female workers to bodily, emotional, and relational processes of (1) physical exertion, (2) emotional exhaustion, and (3) fragmentation of worker cohesion. I conclude that task segregation is an under-examined but potentially crucial and insidious mechanism for inequality at work.

Author

• Curtis Kwinyen Chan, Harvard University