Is a man without a four-year college degree better off trying to land a well-paying but insecure job in traditionally male fields such as manufacturing or construction, or should he consider lower-paying but steadier employment in a female-dominated field?
Janette Dill, a University of Akron sociology professor, and her colleagues try to answer that question in a new study she will present at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
“It’s such a hard labor market if you don’t have a college degree,” Dill says. “You’re just really shut out from jobs that pay a decent wage.”
While manufacturing has been declining for decades and construction is highly cyclical, healthcare continues its steady rise. The healthcare and social assistance sector will add 5 million jobs from 2012 to 2022, accounting for nearly one-third of all job growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects.
Dill and sociology professors Kim Price-Glynn, of the University of Connecticut, and Carter Rakovski, of California State University-Fullerton, analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data to compare how low-skill men in male-dominated occupations fared in comparison with men in “frontline” healthcare jobs that do not require a four-year degree and are dominated by women (nursing assistants, administrative workers, and others).
They found that although male frontline healthcare workers earned less than male blue-collar workers, the blue-collar workers were more likely to be laid off.
“It’s sort of a trade-off,” Dill says. “You can either go into manufacturing and make higher wages, but you may lose your job, or you can go into healthcare and have a higher degree of job stability.”
Still a stigma
The researchers found no evidence that men were leaving male-dominated occupations for frontline healthcare jobs. The lower pay, along with the stigma men may feel doing “women’s work,” are among the reasons.
However, frontline allied healthcare jobs — surgical technicians and the like, which require a two-year degree or equivalent, involve more technical expertise, and pay more than traditionally female-dominated healthcare jobs — are a different story.
“We see a high rate of growth of men going into these occupations,” Dill says.
In 2001, men made up 17 percent of frontline allied healthcare workers. By the end of the decade, it was 26 percent.
The authors raise the possibility that for men without a four-year college degree, frontline allied healthcare jobs may be the ticket to a stable middle-class lifestyle as they pay better and are more stable than blue collar work.
About the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a nonprofit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.
The paper, “Is There a Penalty for Caring? Careers of Men in Caring Occupations Versus Male-Dominated Occupations,” will be presented on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 12:30 p.m. PDT in San Francisco at the American Sociological Association’s 109th Annual Meeting.
To obtain a copy of the paper; for assistance reaching the study’s author(s); or for more information on other ASA presentations, members of the media can contact Daniel Fowler, ASA Media Relations Manager, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org. During the Annual Meeting (Aug. 16-19), ASA Public Information Office staff can be reached in the on-site press office, located in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square’s Union Square 1-2 Room, at (415) 923-7506 or (914) 450-4557 (cell).
Papers presented at the ASA Annual Meeting are typically working papers that have not yet been published in peer reviewed journals.
Media contacts: Eileen Korey, 330-972-8589 or korey@uakron.edu, or Roger Mezger, 330-972-4219 or rmezger@uakron.edu.