In the seventeenth-century Florentine textile industry, women were employed

游客2024-01-13  31

问题     In the seventeenth-century Florentine textile industry, women were employed primarily inlow-paying, low-skill jobs. To explain this segregation of labor by gender, economists have reliedon the useful theory of human capital. According to this theory, investment in human capital-theacquisition of difficult job-related skills-generally benefits individuals by making them eligible toengage in well-paid occupations. Women’s role as child bearers, however, results in interruptionsin their participation in the job market (as compared with men’s) and thus reduces theiropportunities to acquire training for highly skilled work. In addition, the human capital theoryexplains why there was a high concentration of women workers in certain low-skill jobs, such asweaving, but not in others, such as combing or carding, by positing that because of their primaryresponsibility in child rearing women took occupations that could be carried out in the home.
    There were, however, differences in pay scales that cannot be explained by the human capitaltheory. For example, male construction workers were paid significantly higher wage than femaletaffeta weavers. The wage difference between these two low-skill occupations stems from thesegregation of labor by gender: because a limited number of occupations were open to women,there was a large supply of workers in their fields, and this “overcrowding” resulted in womenreceiving lower wages and men receiving higher wages.

选项 A、low-skill jobs performed by primarily by women employees
B、low-skill jobs that were not perfomed in the home
C、low-skill jobs performed by both male and female employees
D、high-skill jobs performed outside the home
E、high-skill jobs performed by both male and female employees

答案 B

解析 This question asks you to draw an inference about something that differentiates weaving from combing and carding. The best answer is B. First, the phrase “there was a high concentration of women workers in certain low-skill jobs, such as weaving, but not in others, such as combing and carding” indicates that all three jobs in question were low-skill jobs. Second, the passage states that women tended to take occupations that could be carried out in the home; the fact that there was a high concentration of female weavers, but not of female combers and carders, thus suggests that weaving was performed in the home, but combing and carding were not. Choice A is not correct because the passage suggests that relatively small numbers of women did combing and carding; furthermore, even if combing and carding had been performed mainly by women, this fact would not distinguish those occupations from weaving. Choice C is incorrect because the passage mentions relative levels of concentration of women in the occupations of weaving, combing, and carding, suggesting that all three jobs were performed to some extent by men as well. Thus, combing and carding would not differ from weaving in this regard. Choices D and E can be eliminated. The phrase “there was a high concentration of women workers in certain low-skill jobs, such as weaving, but not in others, such as combing and carding” indicates that all three jobs in question were low-skill jobs. Thus any choice that characterizes combing and carding as high-skill jobs is incorrect.
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