Work

Gendered Job Segregation

The practice of filling occupations with mostly male or mostly female workers. The American workforce is characterized by a high degree of occupational sex segregation — just as we gender all kinds of things, we gender jobs. Jobs aren't inherently masculine or feminine. Instead, jobs are socially constructed in ways that suggest they are best suited for stereotypical women or men. With time, we come to think of certain jobs as 'men's work' or 'women's work'. The social construction of jobs is about actively making work meaningful in gendered ways. Jobs and occupations slowly take on the characteristics of those who typically perform them.E.g., As more women became nurses, it was seen as demanding 'feminine' qualities, such as nurturance.

Parks and Recreation,"Women in Garbage" (2013)

"Leslie comes to Chris with her latest endeavor: a commission on gender equality.The lack of women in their government is criminal and it's time to do something about it. ... They get down to business, and Leslie points out that the #1 offender of gender inequality is sanitation. Why are there no female garbage collectors? The department reps claim that the job is too physically demanding for the average woman. Unsurprisingly, Leslie takes this on as a welcome challenge."

"Gender and Biased Perceptions: Scientists Rate Job Applicants," by Gwen Sharp

127 professors — of biology, physics, and chemistry — were asked to evaluate the application materials of an undergrad science student applying for a lab manager position. Everyone was given the same materials, but half were given the first name Jennifer and half John" The reading found that there was a significant difference in the average competence, hireability, and mentoring ratings by gender. Professors who thought they were evaluating a female applicant saw a less qualified applicant. Female professors were just as likely to do this as the male professors were— indicating that both genders are influenced by enduring cultural stereotypes about women and science competence. The professors were also asked to recommend a starting salary. The average suggested beginning salary for the male candidate was $30,238, while for the female student it was $26,507.

Androcentric Pay Scale

A strong correlation [exists] between wages and the gender composition of a job. If there is an androcentric pay scale, then we should expect male-dominated jobs to be among the highest paying. They are. If jobs filed by women are devalued in part because of their association with women.Then we should expect these jobs to pay less than jobs associated with men. They do. More than two-thirds (16 of 23) of the lowest-paying occupations are disproportionately female.

Gender Pay Gap

A succinct measure of men's advantage, it refers to the difference between the incomes of the average man and woman who work full-time. Among workers employed full-time, women earn $0.82 for every dollar a man makes. While the size of the gender pay gap varies. It is persistent across race, educational level, geographic location, age and 200 years of history. Analysts estimate that over a lifetime the average woman will make $434,000 less in income than the average man.

Declining wages of men

As men's wages fell, women's participation in the formal labor force helped to ease the economic burden on families (i.e., it was a matter of financial necessity).

Rising divorce rates

Divorce caused — and continues to cause — economic uncertainty for women, creating an economic incentive for them to enter the formal labor force.

Employer Selection Hypothesis

Employers tend to prefer men for masculine jobs and women for feminine jobs, slotting applicants into gender consistent roles. Employers often rely on gender stereotypes when making decisions related to hiring or job assignment. Employers play important roles in creating and maintaining occupational sex segregation. Because employers are the ones who hire and assign workers to jobs. Conscious and unconscious — or 'implicit' — gender biases contribute to gendered job segregation.

Service economy

Expanding service industries created many economic opportunities for women. In 2004, women made up at least half of all workers in education and health services, leisure and hospitality, financial activities... [and] half of all management, professional, and related occupations were held by women.

Women's Movement

Feminism as an ideology of female empowerment (1960s and 1970s)

Network Hypothesis

Hiring often occurs through personal networks... existing employees... tell their friends, who tend to be of the same sex. Applications are then gendered... [and] hiring is even more so.

Socialization Hypothesis

Men and women respond to gender stereotypes when planning, training, and applying for jobs. Men and women's beliefs about their own competencies — 'competence bias' — may affect their decisions about what occupations to enter.

Feminization of occupations

Nurses, pharmacists, veterinarians, librarians, clerical workers, teachers, bank tellers are examples of occupations that used to be most filled by men, but are now dominated heavily by women. Clerical work was once almost exclusively male.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

The gender composition of a job is the single largest contributor to the wage gap. Occupational pay and prestige tend to follow sex — women's work' pays, on average, anywhere between 5 percent and 21 percent less than men's work.

Rise in women's labor force participation

The vast majority of women in the U.S. are working for pay — including mothers of young children. Percentage of women working outside the home with children under the age of eighteen has nearly tripled in sixty years: From 24% in 1950 to 70% in 2015. Analysts have identified two 'push' factors — which refer to the costs of not working for pay — related to economic insecurity. Declining wages of men and rising divorce rates (divorce rate peaked in 1980)

Federal legislation

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act — in particular — served to remove some of the legal barriers to paid employment for women. Since 1964, discrimination on the basis of sex or gender has been criminalized.

Desertion Hypothesis

When individuals enter a job dominated by the other sex, they are more likely than other workers to leave that occupation in favor of a new one. Workers tend to abandon counter-stereotypical occupations at a rate higher than stereotypical ones.

'Pull' factors

Which refer to the benefits of paid work: Economic independence — a requisite for individual autonomy — was arguably the most important of the pull factors.

Devaluation Hypothesis:

Women are paid less because the work they perform is socially defined as less valuable than the work men perform. Pay rates are determined in part by cultural understandings regarding the worth of jobs. Occupations that involve caring, nurturing and empathizing are undervalued in American society. The devaluation of feminized occupations is especially acute for care work. It involves face-to-face caretaking of the physical, emotional and educational needs of others. In 2012, the average yearly income of child care workers was only $21,310. Only twenty-two of the 800 jobs listed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics had lower annual wages; 99.5 percent of jobs in American pay better. People who worked parking cars were paid more. Job segregation contributes to the gender pay gap because...Both men and women — whether they're employers or workers — tend to attribute more value to 'men's work' than 'women's work'. We think masculine work is, literally, more valuable.