Men and Women in the workplace – current challenges

American men aged 20 and up lost nearly 700,000 jobs while American women gained nearly 300,000 jobs between November 2007 and April 2008 according to the household survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Why?

According to Business Week, men have the misfortune of having employment concentrated in the two sectors that are doing the worst: manufacturing and construction. Women employment is concentrated in sectors that are still growing, such as education and health care.

This situation is hardly good news for women, though. While they're getting more jobs, their pay is stagnant. Also, most share households with the men who are losing jobs. The troubles for the American male worker are hardly new. The manufacturing sector is in long-term decline, and construction goes through repeated booms and busts. Meanwhile women are graduating from college at higher rates than men. Some analysts even argue that men are less suited than women to the knowledge economy, which rewards supposedly female traits such as sensitivity, intuition, and a willingness to collaborate. "Men have tended to do better in the hierarchies, following orders and relying on positional power," says Andy Hines, with a Washington (D.C.) consulting firm.

And what about the pay – men make more than women, right? Men work more than women ... on the job anyway ... at least in terms of overall hours. That's just one reason why when you make a general comparison of men's and women's earnings in most fields, men usually come out ahead, according to Warren Farrell, a San Diego-based author. “People who do best in a field (financially) just plain put in more hours,"

But hours alone don't fully account for the gap in women's and men's earnings. Farrell identified 25 work-life decisions that men and women make in the course of their careers that have a direct bearing on their earning potential. Farrell found, for instance, that men are more likely to opt for doing that which can lead to a higher paycheck, including: relocate or travel extensively for work; take on more hazardous assignments; work in the hard sciences; take jobs requiring greater financial risk; work in unpleasant environments (e.g. prisons or coal mines).

Women, by contrast, are more likely to seek "careers that are more fulfilling, flexible and safe," Farrell writes. But the tradeoff is that "the pay can be lower because more people compete to be fulfilled, causing the supply to exceed the demand." Even among highly paid women -- those who make over $100,000 -- Farrell found they are more likely than men at the same pay level to forfeit some pay in exchange for more free time. Women often reduce their work hours so they can take care of their families. While men may end up with more pay in many fields, Farrell believes women can end up with a better life on balance.

In looking at respective pay, he found more than 80 occupations for regular working women in which they made more than their male counterparts. In 39 of the occupations he found women's median earnings exceeded men's earnings by at least 5 percent and as much as 43 percent. And why do some fields pay women a premium? "No one really knows perfectly the answer," according to Farrel. One factor may be scarcity. In fields like engineering, a company may get one woman and seven men applying for a job, Farrell said. If the company wants to hire the woman, they may have to pay a premium to get her. That's because she may have more competing offers than her male counterparts. The reason: not only is she a top performer who can boost a company's profitability but employing her helps a company improve its equal-opportunity standing, which in turn can help it secure government contracts.

Also, where women can combine technical expertise with people skills – such as those required in sales and other arenas where customers may prefer dealing with a woman – that's likely to contribute to a premium in pay.

It's not that Farrell doesn't think pay discrimination exists. It does, he said, but it's not always against women. There's plenty of it against men, too. He points to careers that have limited opportunities for men – e.g., dental hygienist or elementary school teacher because people prefer a woman in those roles.

Right now men are in a bad spot. The percentage of men aged 20 and over with jobs has fallen since last November from 72.9% to 72.2% in April. For women it rose from 58.1% to 58.3%. The adult male unemployment rate has risen twice as much as the female jobless rate since November.

If we look at employment sector by sector, manufacturing is over 70% male and construction is about 88% male. Meanwhile the growing education and health services sector is 77% female. The government sector, which has also remained strong, is 57% female.

Men are having a harder time than women getting back on track after losing a job. "For a man to move from a $20- or $30-an-hour union job to being a Wal-Mart greeter is devastating," says Claudia Goldin, a Harvard University labor historian. Men also shy away from some of the growing fields, such as nursing. Only about 10% of nursing students nationwide are male, notes Harriet R. Feldman, dean of the Pace University School of Nursing. Some retired nurses are actually going back to work because their husbands have lost jobs, says Lois Cooper, vice-president at Adecco Group North America.
If the recession persists, women will be more likely than men to hang onto their job. Why? In part, because women tend to choose professions in service industries, such as health care and education, which remain in demand even during tough times. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to work in manufacturing and construction, which are harder hit when consumer spending declines.