Can You See The Separate Worlds of Work for Men and Women?

For men and women to be equally distributed across occupations, about half (46%) of either group would have to change occupations. That's progress from 62% segregation in 1960. But it was already down to 48% in 1990, so we're pretty well stalled.

Lots of people work in environments that seem integrated, or at least they can point to men and women in the same room at work. And women have broken into a lot of formerly male-dominated fields, and a few men are even going the way of the "male nurse." But these are mostly in the white collar world of the professions and the college educated, which is partly because women now outnumber men about 114 to 100 among people with college degrees.

In fact, almost the entire decline in segregation since the 1960s took place among professionals, managers, and non-retail sales jobs. The blue-collar world is still a man's world. Women are just 2% of construction workers. Altogether, when Matt Huffman and I looked at the occupation, industry and local-area combinations of all workers (for example, waiters in restaurants in Detroit; janitors in manufacturing in Atlanta, etc.), we found that the average worker is in a group that is about 70% same-gender.

But these numbers don't show the true extent of separation in the worlds of work. When you look closer, it's more segregated than that. Check out the latest newsletter from the the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, filled with nothing but posed pictures from meetings and receptions, including no less than 58 union leaders - every one male (though three are with their wives).

In fact, millions - tens of millions - of men and women spend their work days (or nights) almost exclusively side by side with their own gender. And here I'm not counting gender "diversity" across hierarchies - like the nice guy who supervises a group of women at a restaurant, the male accountant who hangs around the copy room with the secretaries for chit chat, or the female human resources manager at an auto dealership.

In some arenas, there's simply male dominance, and we're used to it. On the front page of my edition of the New York Times the other day there were 21 people named, 16 of whom where men - three politicians, six reporters, two athletes, and one each of: photographer, editor, architect, coach, actor. (There were two female reporters, an athlete and a photographer; one name I wasn't sure of.) On CNN you wouldn't see this gender imbalance (at least among the on-screen staff), but in the newspaper it's not as galling.

Seeing this, I walked out my door to do a few errands around my liberal enclave, and brought a piece of scratch paper. On the road you see people driving, and the driving professions are pretty male. So the truck drivers were 97% male (30/31), bus or shuttle drivers were 70% male (7/10), and those driving repair and maintenance trucks and vans of various kinds (cable, plumbing, UPS, etc.) were 100% male (13/13), as were the less numerous garbage and recycling crews (4/4), road construction guys (7/7), landscaping workers (9/9), movers (4/4) cops and prison transport drivers.

I would feel compelled to tell you I'm not making this up, but I'm sure you believe me. I did see three women in catering trucks, and even one driving an exterminator truck.

Maybe you have to go indoors to find the women at work. Hm, daycare workers 100% female (5/5); bagel store servers 100% female (3/3), but working with a male manager; receptionists 2/2 female.

The bastion of gender integration was the natural foods co-op - 3 men and 6 women without clear job identifiers (stocking, cooking, cashiering, etc.). Oh, and I saw a mix of male (1) and female (2) parking lot attendants. I ate my granola in the parking lot.

Comments

[tbone99]

Unions have discriminated against blacks, women and 'others" for years. many reqire a referral to enter an apprenticeship , as in who do you know? People of these categories who do make it in , are subject to ongoing harassment and in the case of women, a hostile work enviroment , just by the ongoing locker room atmosphere of porn and smutty talk.

Not a big surprise women are not working in these professions- they're not wanted!

[research]

Women don't want the blue collar jobs.

[bn]

Lots of times it's female workers with male bosses/management.
And sadly, church work seems the most male-dominated of all.
I wouldn't mind these situations so much if only there was gender PAY equity...

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

Note also that challenging pay inequality is very difficult if men and women work under different job titles. As long as the employer can point to any differences between the work men do and the work women do, any disparity in pay is hard to remedy legally, even if the jobs require equivalent skills. If they're in different jobs you have to prove deliberate discrimination, which is much harder. So segregation provides the legal protection for gender inequalit in pay.

[OnTheCusp]

Of course "womens' work" is devalued. Always has been that way. For example, when everyone comes home at night, whose job is it to cook dinner? Moms/or the woman of the house. Ahhh, but if a male and a female, (both equally intelligent recent high school graduates,) go in get a job as a cook at a local restaurant, they guy is going to get the cooking "job" because if you want to cook AND get PAID for it, it suddenly becomes "mens work." The females get relegated to a waitressing job while the fellows are making a near living wage. And God help the girls who aren't pretty. Really, God help them, especially if they cannot afford college to up their worth in the world's eyes. It's almost a truism. Anything women are expected to do for free, men get PAID to do. A real pisser for the females.

[TerroristManGonnaGetYa]

If someone doesn't already see this for his or her self, he or she will unlikely learn anything from your post. Self-evident is.

[WorkingClass]

Thanks for your reply. Its not more female roofers necessarily but more "equality" that you advocate. More power to you. I myself am troubled by the inequality regarding the rich and the poor.

[WorkingClass]

What is your point? Do we need more female truck drivers? Roofers? Do we need more male receptionists? Anybody?

[Philip N. Cohen - Huffpost Blogger]

Well, there are two schools of thought. One is, "separate is OK, because separate can be equal." You get the historical reference there. I disagree. My view is that separate and unequal are two sides of the coin. When you have two groups doing different kinds of work, history shows you will find one in the dominant social position. My previous posts showed some connections between gender segregation and inequality.

[earlgreyrooibos]

I also find it interesting that as women have moved into certain fields, those fields have lost their respective status, and becomes lower-paying. In the hard sciences, I'm thinking biology - more women have moved into biology than chemistry and physics, and now it has lost some of its status as a "hard' science. Psychology also used to be a male-dominated field, and now it's seen as a "female" profession, and not as lucrative as it used to be. I'm sure there are other examples as well. I think the tranisitions of biology and psychology really illustrate your point, that separate career fields are definitely not equal.