Since the 1970s the United States has shiftedaway from a manufacturing economy and toward a service-sector economy. This shift has been difficult for many workers, but especially for working-class men, who have been hurt by the loss of manufacturing and production jobs that have traditionally provided better wages, benefits, and job security than service-sector jobs. Indeed, the percentage of men working in manufacturing and production jobs jobs that used to be good jobs for men without a college degree has declined by over 50% since the 1970s, and mens wages have dropped over the same time period. <\/p>\n
At the same time, there has been arise in service-sector occupations, many of which are female-dominated health care occupations, such as registered nurses, home health aides, and personal care aides. However, few men are entering these female-dominated occupations, despite high demand for the positions. <\/p>\n
One reason is because many of these jobs dont pay well. An average personal care aide or medical assistant,common entry-level health care positions, earns around $10$15 per hour. In contrast, a middle-age man working in a manufacturing plant might earn $20$30 per hour. Moving into one of these care-work occupations can mean a painful cut in pay. <\/p>\n
In addition, there is stigma around doing womens work, with men being reluctant to take jobs that require tasks that are associated with femaleness, such as hands-on care for an elderly person or child. In many ways, the election of Donald Trump brought this reluctance to the forefront; it is far more appealing to be promised manufacturing jobs than it is to be told you have to do womens work. <\/p>\n
A recent study, conducted by myself, Kim Price-Glynn, and Carter Rakovski and published in Gender & Society,looks at how this combination of gender stigma and compensation play out. Specifically, we looked at entry-level jobs in the health care sector. We found that there has been no increase in the percentage of men in health care occupations that require tasks most associated with femaleness, like bathing, feeding, or toileting. Direct-care jobs that are filled by men are more likely to be filled by minority men, suggesting that discrimination in the labor market at large is pushing them into care work. Men in these jobs also have devalued wages, or wages that are far lower than their counterparts in male-dominated occupations. <\/p>\n
At the same time, we also found evidence that some men are carving out spaces for themselves in the service economy. We found that there are some occupations in the health care sector,relatively new occupations, where the work is less feminized and less stigmatized, and where there has been an increase in male workers. These jobs, what we call entry-level allied health occupations, require some training, thoughnot a four-year college degree, and include occupations such assurgical technician, respiratory therapist, radiology technician, andemergency medical technician. Entry-level allied health occupations typically provide decent wages ($30,000$65,000 a year) and benefits, and men in these occupations tend to be better off in terms of wages and job security than their peers in blue-collar manufacturing occupations. According to my calculations using the Survey ofIncome and Program Participation, in 1996 men were16% of entry-level allied health workers; in 2008 the percentage was 26%. <\/p>\n
This all signals that men, and particularly white men who are able to gain additional training, may be defining some health care occupations as more technical and masculine, preserving the conventional understandings of masculinity within the health care sector. Unfortunately, this also means that women and minority men may continue to be clustered in lower-paying direct-care occupations, where the dirty work remains stigmatized as womens work. <\/p>\n
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The Entry-Level Health Care Jobs Men Are (and Are Not) Taking - Harvard Business Review<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since the 1970s the United States has shiftedaway from a manufacturing economy and toward a service-sector economy. This shift has been difficult for many workers, but especially for working-class men, who have been hurt by the loss of manufacturing and production jobs that have traditionally provided better wages, benefits, and job security than service-sector jobs. Indeed, the percentage of men working in manufacturing and production jobs jobs that used to be good jobs for men without a college degree has declined by over 50% since the 1970s, and mens wages have dropped over the same time period. Continue reading