Women are getting most of the new jobs. What's going on with men?
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1. For years, men have have had a much higher employment rate than women, e.g. 85 million men vs. 66 million women in the US in 2024 [1]. In other words, women are just catching up.
2. Women have a much higher rate of part-time jobs [1]. That is, a certain job would employ more women than men if women typically work part-time while men typically work full-time.
3. Employers are sometimes incentivized to hire women over men in case of equal qualification, e.g. [2]
4. Women earn better salaries than ever before, making it more attractive for them to apply to more jobs.
5. The statistics doesn't say anything about job migration: if I'm a woman who got a good job today but could get an even better one in half a year, will that be counted as two jobs given to a woman?
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1378067/number-employed-...
You can't say this, unsupported by evidence, in Trump's America, where revanchist 'white guy DEI' is the ordering of the world.
> Women earn better salaries than ever before
... This is a clever way of avoiding saying that the gendered pay gap still exists, in favor of men, but has been narrowing.
What makes jobs that pay enough 'more attractive', generally, is rising fixed costs, like rent and energy, and stagnant wages.
I've slightly toned down that statement and added a reference.
> ... This is a clever way of avoiding saying that the gendered pay gap still exists, in favor of men, but has been narrowing.
The argument is not about the gender pay gap (which I don't doubt) however.
I do agree though that increased cost of life puts a bigger pressure on everyone to find sources of income.
In fact, it has started to reverse. When controlled for experience and hours worked, and comparing pay for the same job, young women out-earn young men. The reason for this is simple: the ratio of men and women in college has flipped since the 90s, going from 60:40 in favor of men to now roughly 60:40 in favor of women.
We'll see if that remains true in the long-term, however, as women tend to pay a steep penalty, compensation-wise, for maternity leave.
The real issue is the opposite narrative. The idea that men broadly oppressed women across history, preventing them from participating in economic roles, and that modern outcomes are primarily the result of that dynamic being corrected.
There are a number of reasons at play here why that premise doesn’t make much sense (without further context). Here are just five points:
1. For most of history, labor was dictated by physical constraints and survival needs. Work like hunting, land clearing, construction, and early farming depended heavily on upper body strength and endurance, which skewed participation toward men. That’s a division of labor shaped by biology and environment, not a simple story of exclusion. As technology advanced, much of that physicality became unnecessary, which is a major driver of why participation has equalized in modern roles.
2. Women’s roles were not an absence from work, but a concentration in different forms of labor. Childbearing, childcare, food preparation, and household production were essential to survival, even if they don’t show up cleanly in modern employment statistics.
3. Many of the institutions we associate with modern economic life, including formalized science, engineering, and large-scale industry, were disproportionately created and originated in contexts where men were the primary participants. That’s not a claim about superiority, but it does mean the structure of what we now recognize as “work” and “progress” was heavily shaped by that historical imbalance.
4. The concept of a formal job market is relatively recent. In pre-industrial societies, most people, including men, were not participating in anything resembling today’s labor market. Applying modern employment categories backward creates a distorted picture of inclusion and exclusion.
5. Modern workforce participation is strongly driven by changes in technology and incentives. As physical constraints decreased and the returns to education and careers increased, more women entered and competed in the workforce. That shift is not well explained by a single narrative of oppression being lifted, but by broader structural changes.
I'm sorry but I'm not making any such assumptions nor claims. Sorry if you got that impression. If anything, I'm referring to this part of the title: "What's going on with men?"
Other than that, thanks for your contribution - you're listing a lot of important points. If I may add one: disposable hygiene pads that actually work are a fairly recent invention. Through the centuries, women used all kinds of different measures to handle menstruation bleeding that were, however, often associated with social stigma. Therefore, splitting the daily work load such that women could stay was advantageous also just for this practical reason - I suppose it wouldn't have been so awesome to be out in the fields or in a factory during that one week of the month.
i.e. Nursing jobs mostly go to women not because men can’t do them because “nurses aren’t men”, per our current cultural norms.
In other words, men in nursing are treated to the same indignities that women experience in most jobs?
Rather, I am pointing out that irony in the hope that men, dismayed by the treatment of men in certain professions, but find within themselves the empathy to appreciate what women go through and to adjust their behavior accordingly.
As a man who has worked in a predominantly female workplace, my experience has taught me that harassment is less about gender and more about power. Those in power will always feel entitled to behave poorly, regardless of gender.
I am sure that there's a lot of unreported mistreatment of anyone who represents a minority in a given profession.
Many men would rather not work and deal with the financial and social consequences of that than deal with the toxicity both in the workplace and later on if they talk about it.
I literally have no idea how you could have extracted that interpretation from my comment.
I also believe the number of female primary care physicians recently surpassed men. Or at least in Family Medicine, or something like that.
There's always leeway to what I'm saying though. I'm generalizing.
Imagine saying that about, I dunno, the field of computing.
"Sitting in front of a computer geeking out about code, engineering, and electrical signals, caters much more to men than women."
And that's a fact. Women prefer relational jobs.
edit: said "quite a few" originally but then only counted 3
Hah, most of the people I know in the field, especially on that end of are desperate to get out of nursing. One was pursing some sort of environmental engineering degree.
The pay looks ok on paper, but the hours are apparently horrendous.
people burn out because it certainly causes ptsd but its not the hours, its often the patients. just takes one abusive patient to cause enough ptsd to sour someone on the profession entirely
From experiences of friends in the profession, the male nurses are "automatically" assigned all the "lift the patient" sorts of jobs, leading to their injury rates. You really can't put a weight limit on lifting a human being in an emergency situation, OSHA be damned.
there are protocols for using equipment that are supposed to be required and again it depends on the strength and community of a nursing union. going against these protocols in favor of an "emergency response" undermines the union and local culture drives adherence to these protocols. around here your coworkers would bite your head off for ignoring the protocols. not only risking your own literal back, but inviting a lawsuit if you slip and anything goes wrong
It seems unlikely that the success of women in STEM was based on making STEM more feminine, and helping women understand that they can have STEM roles and still stay feminine. It seems more plausible that affirmative action, privileged opportunities, exclusive spaces, and preferential hiring practices had more to do in making women in STEM successful than words about femininity and masculinity.
This is also true for an entirely different reason: all three of these fields would benefit hugely from having more balanced gender ratios
So, no, not really.
Tell me, exactly, why does the study of queer people mean diversity and inclusion is bad?
Not even going to touch your idea that colorblind racism isn't racism.
read a lot of backward assumptions for why "women hold nearly 80% of jobs" in health care. ill offer that its simply because when men fought in war, women worked as nurses. women used those skills to be nurses professionally. their kids saw women as nurses, making great money, and kids often try to do what they see adults around them do. over and over
theres nothing inherently feminine about nursing. its gritty job
- teaching: unruly kids. Bully’s get protected and those who stand up get punished. There’s some level of societal distrust of men around children not their own.
- social work: you’re exposed to some of the worst most horrific side of society constantly for peanut pay. You’re constantly in a position where you want to help people, but are constrained by things far outside your power.
Yeah I don’t care how “masculine” you try to frame them, just not interested.
So... seems like gender _does_ have something to do with that? Maybe just maybe more women gravitate towards these roles because these roles are associated with traditionally-feminine values (care, empathy, nurture)?
Maybe you're "just not interested" because as a man, you've been educated with traditionally-masculine values (strength? protection? power?), and if you had grown up in an environment where these roles are associated to these values, you'd be potentially-interested in them despite their obvious downsides
If we want men to take up certain roles, we need to pay more. That's the simplicity of capitalism and free markets. We bend ourselves into knots trying to find clever and (maybe) cheaper solutions to thorny problems.
Why is it only now, when employment rates are seemingly a problem for men, that we need to pay more in these professions to attract men that might otherwise not have considered them? Why shouldn't we have paid more earlier?
The framing of the article and discussion around it is a little bizarre to me because it ignores the decades or longer of (American) society effectively pushing women into industries like education or nursing and subsequently devaluing them.
I don't quite understand why society has to step in and try to fix this for men who are feeling insecure about their job options while simultaneously actively avoiding trying to help women and minorities.
Yeah, you can totally fix the imbalance in the nursing sector by showing ads with a bunch of male nurses driving monster trucks into the ICU and crushing energy drink cans on patients' foreheads! Or have a cowboy ride his horse into the preschool, smoking a cigarette that he lights by dragging a match across his own thick stubble! This isn't a structural problem, it's just a question of marketing!
Insulting.
There's only so many lumberjacks needed in an economy. Sure you can depress the wages for awhile but there's still a limit.
So you need Men do to something else and the way you do that is with marketing (and also with Men being unemployed until they accept a nursing job).
We expanded job opportunities for women by telling them they can do anything, be anything, and he just as good as men at it. That they're built for anything, and that they aren't naturally forced to do anything one thing.
There are infinite ways to be a woman. There is one way to be a man. That's the problem. We should not be trying to convince men that nursing fits into that one way. Rather, we should be telling men that it's okay to have traditionally feminine jobs.
We've never had a progressive movement for men. We really require that if we're gonna get men, as a whole, to take these jobs seriously.
The US is wealthy enough that the hedonistic treadmill works even for poor-ish disenfranchised men.
Though present day men don't seem to be biting the "let's join the military and fight foreign wars for our corrupt baby-eating pedo leaders" nationalist propaganda, like they did generations ago.
Now you want to lead these males to die in war, while they are fully aware of what you are doing? At best you will get dysfunctional army fragging itself constantly. At worst you will trigger unrest because males would rather should they have an agency than be sacrificed as cattle.
Until the glowies stage a false flag attack on home soil to pin it on Iran.
Everybody immediately knew that this would make no sense for Ukraine to do that - i.e. Why would they just plant explosives to be found, when they would blow it up on spot if they really wanted?. Whole thing kind of fizzled out because nobody took the bait.
There will be more fires and at least one rich person will be eaten.
Luckily the red flags are usually all over the website and walls of most places so you know not to even interview.
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>The lopsidedness was driven by huge growth in health care, where women hold nearly 80% of jobs. Over the past 12 months, health care alone added 390,000 jobs, more than in the economy overall,
How can a part add more than the total? Are pure increase figures being mixed up with increase-reduction in the article? And if so, how is gender balanced in those figures?
As in, balanced job creation + a shitton of mostly male tech workers fired = female growth.
If there's 100 men and 100 women employed and 100 women get fired then you have an equal number of "newly" employed people (0).
If there's 100 men and 50 working women and you fire 100 men and hire 50 women then 100% of the new jobs went to Women. Same is if you didn't fire anybody and just hired 50 women.
The net result is the same, but in the case in my example there is no barrier to men getting jobs.
In fact, if you start with a male dominated economy and it gets progressively balanced, you would see years of absolute female job creation, and that would not imply men are blocked from entering the workforce, just that the male dominated generations are exiting the market as they age and being replaced by a more balanced mix.
For more on this, I recommend Cynical Theories[0] by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.
[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53052177-cynical-theorie...
What about DEI rejects reality?
How have men /not/ been the clear benefactors of gender for effectively all of history, which negatively impacts women in the workplace today?
Human rights is about equality, and DEI achieves that through pulling up the mistreated to reach parity, no? Are you saying “it’s not equality unless everyone is treated equal”? (IE building a wheel chair ramp is not equality, because we’re treating disabled people different)
You'd have to read some of Lyotard's or Foucault's work to understand the roots of this. The idea is that all knowledge is shaped by language, power structures, and cultural context. This is where we get the idea that there isn't "the truth", but that instead there is "my truth".
> Human rights is about equality, and DEI achieves that through pulling up the mistreated to reach parity, no?
Equality is an overloaded term here, which is also a device prevalent in this ideology. Similarly, the term "normal" is taken to mean either statistically common or morally acceptable or both, depending on the argument and who's making it. That's where we get the idea of the problematics of heteronormativity, for example.
It is of course debatable (and has been hotly debated for decades) what qualifies as "mistreated", and to what quantity. As is what counts as "pulling up" versus paradoxical discrimination.
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I'm sorry, but I can't boil down decades of philosophy into a neat paragraph for you.
This implies a contradiction that doesn't exist.
Centuries ago, the aristocracy was statistically left out of jobs and also the eternal benefactors of (quite visible!) omnipresent systemic privilege.
There are multiple potential reasons for men to, statistically, be taking fewer of a set of newly created roles. It could certainly be some systemic bias against them, but it could easily also be that they are choosing not to take them for what are surely good reasons for themselves. It could be that fewer men are interested in new jobs right now period, relative to women. I'm sure there are many other potential explanations as well.
I'm not arguing against you, and I think your argument here actually supports mine. My point is epistemological: that the DEI ideological framework is structured in a way that makes it unfalsifiable. I am not saying that men being statistically underrepresented in certain jobs necessarily implies discrimination against them.
Most job interviews are theater nowadays. It's about conformity, performative culture fitting, agreeableness (read, willing to slave away without complaining).
On average, women tend to better suited for such processes. Along with immigrant groups.
This is quite the claim, and I would understand anyone taking deep offence by it.
Can you substantiate it?
Women are taught from a young age of how to engage with their role in a patriarchal society. This includes caretaking, nurturing, and having patience for men. It's not uncommon for young girls to be given household chores that they must "suck up" and do while they're brothers get away with not doing chores.
In addition, we associate politeness and pleasantness with femininity. A woman ought to be kind and softspoken, and must not swear or raise her voice. We associate masculinity with abrasiveness, stubbornness, arrogance, and rage.
In most jobs and, in fact most social processes, the former is more useful to take advantage of. This could be why women, on the whole, would do better in interviews.
In addition, it is well-known that women socialize much more, including more conversing. They are probably much better at being social on the whole because of that. Meaning, women are much more likely to be charming and likable than men.
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> Over the past 12 months, health care alone added 390,000 jobs, more than in the economy overall, making up for job losses elsewhere.
The article and journalism research should have been about the absurdity of this number. If there has been a 10% increase in the total number of nurses in a single year in the USA, either there is an on-going health crisis to be covered; or you know, the numbers are just garbage.