Gender essentialism and low skilled men’s
exclusion from ‘feminised’ occupations in
Australia
Presentation to the
Centre for Work + Life
Adelaide, South Australia October 2012
Dr Megan Moskos
Outline of Presentation
• What is going on with low skilled men’s labour
market situation?
• Major explanations for men’s withdrawal
• Research approach and methodology of this paper
• Findings of case study research
• Implications of findings for the ways in which
gender segregation is generated in the workplace
and theorised
Prime age male (25 to 54) participation rates, 1981-2006
census data
100
Per cent
Per cent
Degree or higher
90
Post-school
80
100
90
80
No post-school
70
70
60
60
50
50
40
40
1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006
Source: Steven Kennedy, Nicholas Stoney, Leo Vance, 2009
Prime age female (25 to 54) participation rates, 19812006 census data
100
90
Per cent
Per cent
Degree or higher
80
100
90
80
Post-school
70
60
70
60
No post-school
50
50
40
40
1981 1986 1991 1996 2001 2006
Source: Steven Kennedy, Nicholas Stoney, Leo Vance, 2009
Why are men withdrawing from the labour market?
• Changing industrial structure and decline of
traditional ‘male jobs’.
– services sector said to favor the employment attributes of women.
• Growth of non-standard forms of employment and
decline of full-time permanent employment
– Non-standard employment incompatible with traditional notions of
masculinity and men’s prescribed breadwinner role.
• Skill-biased technological change
– Reduced the demand for workers with low skills and increased
demand for those with higher skill levels
Isn’t it more about occupational sex segregation?
• Labour market is changing in gender ways and sex segregation in
occupations continues to impact on labour market opportunities.
• Women’s employment opportunities often explained by occupational
sex segregation.
• How does occupational sex segregation shape low skilled men’s
employment opportunities?
• Analysis of 1996 and 2006 ABS census data
– Which occupations experienced employment growth for workers with no postschool qualifications?
– Which of these occupations experienced a change in the gender share of
employment (distribution of men and women)?
– Whether there is evidence that occupational sex segregation is impacting on lowskilled men’s participation in occupations that experience growth?
How occupational sex segregation shape’s low skilled men’s
employment opportunities: Evidence from the ABS census
• Employment for workers with no post-school qualifications has
expanded most rapidly in occupations that are femaledominated.
– specifically in intermediate and elementary clerical, sales &
service occupations
• Men with no post-school qualifications are not increasing their
share of employment in many of these occupations.
• Why are men not moving into female dominated occupations?
– ABS census does not reveal the causal mechanisms that operate
to generate and / or stall changes in men’s representation in
female dominated jobs.
Explanations for men’s resistance to enter
female dominated jobs
• Paula England’s explanation for asymmetries in gender
change
• David Grusky (with various distinguished collaborators)
and the decline of female advantaging essentialism
• Both view gender essentialism to be a primary
determinant of (horizontal) occupational sex segregation
and its continuation.
• Both explanations rest largely on supply side logic.
• Both theorists suggest that men are themselves choosing
not to enter female jobs.
Is this supply side assumption correct?
• Holds at the upper end of the occupational spectrum where men (and
women) currently have a number of alternative employment choices.
• Does not seem to hold at the lower end of the labour market where
traditional employment opportunities for low skill men have decreased.
• Do low skilled men prefer to join the ranks of the unemployed rather than
obtain employment in female jobs?
• Or is there a level of demand side discrimination that exists for men at the
lower end of the labour market that limits there ability to secure
employment?
• Currently there is little empirical research that test the claims made by
Grusky and England.
Research Aim and Methodology
• Aim:
– To explore supply and demand side dimensions to men’s
segregation from low level female dominated jobs that are
experiencing employment growth in Australia.
• Methodology:
– detailed case studies of 4 strategically chosen female dominated
jobs.
• 2 x female dominated occupations that experienced employment
growth, but in which men did not experience a change in their share
of employment. - child care and sale assistants.
• 2 x female dominated occupations that experienced growth, and in
which men did experience a change in their share of employment. aged care and commercial cleaning
– Interviews with men who might take these jobs (unemployed men),
employers, male workers and clients or customers (total N=107)
Gender essentialism and men’s aversion to the
case study occupations.
• Because they were male
I suppose being a male that would be a disadvantage because … women are tailored for
it, it’s a nurturing thing, the bond that they’ve got with children.
Aged Care Worker 8
• Due to perceptions of self and their preference
I couldn’t wipe their arses, I couldn’t shower them, I couldn’t do anything like that. I don’t
feel comfortable showering a man, that’s his privacy, let him shower himself. This is why
you invented chairs in showers, so he could sit there and have a shower, if not there’s a
bath, let him soak in the tub. I’ll wash their hair and stuff like that for them, no worries, but
I’m not cleaning their areas, that’s their problem and they can do that for themselves.
Unemployed 5
Gender essentialism and men’s preference for
male typed jobs and job attributes
• Working with hands
Anything in the automotive industry. That’s pretty much it. It’s just something that
comes to me. I’m really good with my hands. So I know how it all works, and it just
comes to me really easily.
Unemployed 6
• Working outside
I can’t work indoors; I just feel a bit funny being surrounded by a heap of people
indoors; that’s just not me. I’d rather be out doing – like mowing lawns or stuff like
that, whipper snipping, cutting trees down or whatever. It’s just outdoors, yeah.
Unemployed 10
• Working independently
That sort of independence, I don’t like to be working with the boss sitting on my right
shoulder looking at everything I’m doing, I like to be able to get out there and do it
myself, so any job with a boss there I tend not to go for.
Unemployed 14
Negative experience of female dominated work
environment
• Difficulties adapting due to past work
I wasn’t in my comfort zone was why I disliked it and being a man in a female orientated
workplace was actually quite different, not something I was used to because labouring there
was only blokes on site and that’s all you ever did.
Child Care Worker 8
• Feeling ignored or isolated
• Questioning competency
It’s scary for a male going into that environment. You really doubt yourself, you know, and
what you’re doing.
Aged Care Worker 4
• Men’s dislike of perceived bitchiness and gossip
I can’t help but make the observation that there can be a bit of moodiness and bitchiness
and stuff like that, that mostly the guys that I work with don’t get involved in.
Aged Care Worker 10
Social and interpersonal sanctions associated with
gender inappropriate work
• Being viewed as homosexual or paedophile
When I started child care, friends looked at you funny because back then – even back
then it was still like a man in child care, well he was either gay or there was something
wrong with him.
Child Care Worker 8
• Having career seriousness questioned by others
No way’ that’s what they say. ‘You’re not really in child carer – what do you really do?’ I
say ‘no, I’m a child care worker.’ It might take a few times to convince them.
Child Care Worker 7
• Compromised masculinity
They think it’s not a manly job, they think men have no business being around children. I
understand where they come from, that sort of prejudice side, but they said ‘it’s a girl’s
job’.
Child Care Worker 6
Recognition of sanctions associated with gender
inappropriate work
• Contributing to men’s unwillingness to enter/ intention to
leave
as soon as you are having a problem you go ‘I’ve got to get out of here, I’m not going
to take this
Child Care Worker 7
• Changed workplace behaviour
I know sometimes, personally I feel awkward and that I need to protect myself. Like
if I get left alone with a group of children and there’s not another adult or carer there,
I sometimes feel like, if I’m going to get accused this is the time…. Although
everyone knows I’m not like that, everyone including myself always knows people
may perceive me like that, so I have to protect myself.
Child Care Worker 1
Unfavourable labour market characteristics
deterring men
• Short hours and low pay
The jobs tend not to be full-time and at best they pay $16 an hour; even at my
much reduced lifestyle I figure I can do better than that.
Unemployed 20
• Linked to gender
Yes, but if I’ve had a family I’d have to leave, I couldn’t afford to support a family
on this wage….Well men are supposed to be known as the breadwinner and I’m
sorry but when I get married I want to be the breadwinner, it’s a macho thing, a
male thing…. I couldn’t actually support anyone on my wage. So, I’d be gone; I’d
have to. I know that most males do that because they have to support their
families.
Child Care Worker 6
Gender essentialist exclusionary practices
• Gender essentialist notion of appropriate jobs for men and
women
I guess it’s something that men are not naturally given to. Aged Care Manager 7
I know it might be archaic, but women are the cleaners, men are the hunters.
Commercial Cleaning Manager 4
• Gender essentialism and the belief that women are better
Women are much better. Much, much better. The woman is a positive and the guy
falls a little bit behind and that’s 99% of the time. Commercial Cleaning Manager 1
• Gender essentialism and the threat posed by men
My immediate perception is that there’s got to be something wrong, or weird, or
sexual, like ‘Oh that’s a bit weird, why would a grown man want to hang around
young kids?’.
Child Care Client 5
Gender essentialism’s operation in particular
environments
• Aged Care
When I’ve been in hospital I’ve had male nurses and think nothing about it but in my home it just
seems a bit different, silly I suppose but it does seem different.
Aged Care Client 1
• Child Care
I mean if the man is working in a child care centre they’ve obviously had to go through all of the
security checks and the health checks, police checks and whatever else, so I kind of feel confident.
If it was not in that environment - I probably would feel differently.
Child Care Client 4
• Cleaning
Obviously for a lady cleaner to come into a men’s toilet and say ‘oh it’s just the cleaner, just
checking, that’s okay’ whereas a male comes in they get all etchy about it and the guy feels
awkward about it.
Commercial Cleaning Client 5
• Sales
Yeah. I don’t want to be trying on a bra in front of a man and having him fit me obviously for
something personal like that.
Sales Assistant Client 4
Gender essentialism and men doing certain tasks
•
Females here, for example, who would specifically ask for a female to attend to
them, especially when it comes to showering and things like that.
Aged Care Worker 7
•
If it’s changing children, in terms of toilet training and nappy changing, we have
had parents that have requested for those male workers not to participate in those
care giving skills.
Child Care Manager 2
Gender essentialism and the construction of
appropriate male workers
• Aged care
I had a male nurse come in for what I call a back rub and I didn’t take any notice but he
was an older man and had been doing for years, where some times when you get like an
Asian man come in, you’re not sure…you think about it more I suppose.
Aged Care Client 3
• Child care
With our other male at [organisation name], he’s not unattractive, but he’s not young and
handsome like these fellows. And there are some people who are like ‘who’s that man?’
and that don’t feel comfortable having him around their children. Child Care Manager 1
• Sales
I find older people are less intimidating. Like I do find women less intimidating in certain
situations and I also find older men less intimidating in a sense. Sales Assistant Client 1
Gender essentialism and discriminatory
employment practices
• Reduced demand for male workers due to clients preference
Clients mightn’t be as open to it and so it’s a bit of a risk to take on a male. We
might not be able to get work for him because people mightn’t want that or maybe
he won’t be good at it.
Aged Care Manager 6
• Direct employer discrimination
I think my feeling here is that there is a perception that there’s a certain type of
person that they want to employ. I haven’t been here long, but I would think that
the idea of a male worker wouldn’t, they wouldn’t even look at.
Aged Care Manager 3
If I was to employ I would specifically look for a female. There is an expectation
when people walk in here. But definitely I would look for a female rather than a
male.
Sales Assistant Manager 5
Segregating labour market processes
• Recruitment sources favouring female employment and
maintaining the status quo
I suppose we have quite strategic succession planning so when a vacancy
becomes available we look internally first and foremost and then if we’ve
exhausted all avenues internally we’ll go to market. Sales Assistant Manager 4
We also use a lot of students that go through TAFE and uni and if they prove
themselves here on student days they normally end up working for us.
Child Care Manager 2
Conclusion
• Clear evidence of processes operating on the supply side of the labour
market to restrict men’s movement into feminised jobs in Australia.
– Gender essentialism
– broader labour market conditions
• Compelling evidence that mechanisms also operate on the demand
side of the labour market to limit men’s movements into gender atypical
jobs.
•
Gender essentialism
•
Segregative labour market processes
• Suggests that demand side strategies and policies, such as antidiscrimination campaigns, may have some positive impact to increase
men’s movement into female dominated job and reduce occupational
sex segregation.
Integrative mechanisms – next paper
• Supply
•
•
Benefits accrued to men due to their minority status
–
Being looked at as favourable job applicants
–
Receiving additional support
–
Being subjected to more relaxed rules and regulations
Standard labour market factors
–
Rational decisions about employment given current and future labour demand
–
Difficulties obtaining work in areas traditionally worked
–
Positive identifications with aspects of the work.
• Demand
• Managers and clients construction of certain aspects of jobs as requiring masculine
traits
• Demand for men as minority workers
• General labour demand