(Re)producing Occupational Segregation: Gendered and Racialised Discourses and Experiences of Exclusion in Vocational Education

Occupational segregation refers to the systematic concentration of different demographic groups in different occupations. It is connected to various problems – including pay inequality, exclusion, discrimination, unemployment and labour shortages. For these reasons, numerous research and intervention projects have called for reducing segregation. Gender segregation, in particular, has been addressed in several projects but has proved extremely durable. According to previous research, one of the central explanations for occupational segregation is widely shared cultural stereotypes about gender, race and class. I build on this research and demonstrate how gendered and racialised discourses construct boundaries by defining who is seen as suitable for which occupation, and thus (re)produce occupational segregation.
This dissertation consists of three papers. In the first paper, I explain how gendered discourses on technology are exclusionary discourses that may (re)produce gender segregation. However, I also note that these discourses are context-specific, changeable, and influence people differently depending on their intersectional positions. In the second paper, I demonstrate that unrecognition is a central experience in the lives of trans and nonbinary people and discuss how this is related to the (re)production of occupational segregation by gender identity and trans background. In the third paper, I show that discourses on migrants, language skills, and the suitability of educational and vocational paths racialise students perceived as migrants in Finnish vocational education and training (VET), and may (re)produce occupational segregation by race.
I argue that gendered and racialised discourses (re)produce educational and occupational segregation by influencing individuals’ perceptions of themselves and of the occupations suitable for them by shaping how others relate to them, and by influencing organisational practices. Gendered and racialised discourses are socially constructed, changeable, context-specific, and individuals and communities can resist them – for example, when they resist stereotypical presentations of themselves. Nevertheless, they are powerful in shaping people’s occupational paths. I also argue that occupational segregation may be (re)produced when individuals search for environments where they are recognised and respected as themselves, or when they are excluded because they are not recognised, for example, as someone who can belong. This is more pronounced with those groups that routinely experience unrecognition, such as trans and nonbinary people.