Task Segregation as a Mechanism for Within-Job Inequality: Women and Men of the Transportation Security Administration

What could explain inequality within a given job between groups of workers, particularly between women and men? Extant workplace inequality scholarship has largely overlooked as a source for inequality the job’s work content—the actual tasks workers perform. It is possible, however, for a job to have considerably heterogeneous tasks and for particular tasks to be differentially allocated by worker group. We deem this possibility “task segregation”—when a group of workers is disproportionately allocated to spend more time doing particular tasks within a job. If these tasks are relatively undesirable, then the segregated group may have relatively poorer job quality. Drawing on interviews with airport security screeners, we analyze a case of task segregation and the processes through which it generated inequality in job quality. Relative to male screeners, female screeners were more often allocated the reportedly undesirable task of passenger pat-downs, disproportionately exposing them to processes of physical exertion, emotional labor, and relational strain. Task segregation also disproportionately exposed female screeners to processes of managerial sanction and skillset narrowing that further contributed to poor job quality for women. Overall, we build theory around how task segregation can act as a mechanism for generating within-job inequality in job quality.