Why are so many minimum wage/low paid jobs done by women?

[LorlieS]

Why is this still "the norm?"

Surely a quick Google can tell you that?

The EHRC published a report
in 2017 talking about the reasons for the gender pay gap. Many other think tanks, organisations and Nobel prize winners have also researched it too.

There is no one single reason, but there are a lot of factors as to why there are more women than men on low wages. For example, women tend to need work which fits around other obligations such as parenting, caring, etc, and a lot of retail, hospitality and shift based roles are both flexible, and low paid. Women often need to work part time and part time worm is statistically paid less than full time work. This is because women shoulder a disproportionate burden of unpaid care work in our society. There are many many studies on this.

On top of that, what is seen as womens work is consistently undervalued socially, compared to what is considered mens work. Occupations with a high frequency of women employees are underpaid when compared to male counterparts. This is an interesting study on the phenomenon: academic.oup.com/sf/article-abstract/88/2/865/2235342

Also, women have often been discouraged at best or actively blocked at worst from some roles. My MIL was a doctor and she remembered how hard it was to get ahead, and how few women there were, when she first started out in medical school in the 70's. I know of women now in the tech industy experiencing the same challenges she did, moving forward in male dominated companies. There are also more men than women in senior roles. Girls looking at the world of work have fewer role models and mentors when it comes to higher paid work.

Maternity leave obviously plays a significant role as well, in limiting women's earning ability, and putting employers off hiring, developing and promoting women. It shouldn't but it still does, sadly. Pregnant then Screwed will have lots of info about that.

I suppose "caring" roles, which are mostly done by women, are also some of the lowest paid too?
I wonder as well if there is still an expectation for a man to be the main earner in a household?

Now that medicine as a career, has a more equal balance between the sexes, it is no longer the well paid career it once was.

The way to reduce the gender pay gap is not just to get women into traditionally well paid roles but also to get men into traditionally poorly paid roles.

@ChateauMargaux But how is that going ro happen?
I also think that a lot of people still "look down" on men in less well-paid jobs.
And is there the "classic fairy tale" belief still that a "good husband" is a wealthy one/one able to be the sole provider?

I’ve just finished reading Normal Women by Philippa Gregory which explains exactly this situation and how it developed over the past 900 years. Previous poster completely correct about half the battle is getting men to ‘accept’ doing poorly paid ‘women’s’ jobs otherwise nothing will ever change.

@Prometheus But why would men want to do that?
My husband works in a caring role traditionally done by women; he's one of only two men in a very large department. He is still asked by some how he supports his wife and children. Gives me the rage that it's assumed that he should!!

Even with nursing, with more men joining the profession, they still get promoted quicker and they are more applauded than female colleagues.

I am not aware of any evidence or data which shows that a significantly higher proportion of women than men are employed in minimum wage jobs. They might be employed in different low paid work (eg care work vs driving) but that’s a separate issue.

The so-called ‘gender pay gap’ exists because men are still massively over-represented in the top 1-2% of earners. The CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, entrepreneurs. Bankers, footballers etc etc which skews the overall figures. For the vast majority of ordinary men & women doing normal, directly comparable jobs the pay gap isn’t significant when corrected for working hours, career breaks etc etc and it’s either ignorant or deliberately misleading to suggest otherwise.

Well they say a woman's work is never done. Which might be why you get paid less.

Wonder if things would be different if shared parental leave was on offer?
My husband and I would most certainly have gone down that path had we been able (he would literally give anything to be a SAHP, whereas I could think of nothing worse!)

@BarelyLiterate .. a cursory google suggests that there is indeed evidence that there are more women than men in lower paid jobs.

4% of men are in minimum wage jobs compared to 6% of women.

..https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06838/SN06838.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiUpd6l1N6DAxU1VKQEHTULC-wQFnoECCsQAQ&usg=AOvVaw0yw5m1V0pwS4ZHo5zftEOv

https://www.livingwage.org.uk/news/over-2-million-women-uk-earn-below-real-living-wage#:~:text=OVER%202%20MILLION%20WOMEN%20IN%20THE%20UK%20EARN%20BELOW%20THE%20REAL%20LIVING%20WAGE,-09%20Mar%202023

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/mar/03/uk-women-low-pay-more-likely-than-men-struggling-wage

https://hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/two-thirds-of-female-dominated-professions-have-a-gender-pay-gap/147527

https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/blog/2021/minimum-wage-yet-another-gender-divide

https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2019/04/16/decoding-the-gender-pay-gap-how-a-bletchley-park-codebreaker-helped-explain-a-strange-paradox/

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06838/SN06838.pdf

The gender pay gap has multiple layers...

Women are more likely to be in minimum wage jobs
Women are more likely to be paid less for the same work
More likely to work fewer hours
More likely to do unpaid work
More likely to be out of work
Less likely to be promoted

And yes.. at the much higher levels, much less likely to be in the top jobs that you mention.

The gender pay gap also fails to look at wealth and control of assets, this is also significantly skewed towards men.

All of these are compounding factors and should be considered if we are to get a true picture of the inequalities of pay between men and women.

It is not 'ignorant' or 'misleading' not to discuss all of the relevant factors.

While ago there was a thread , when OP asked , was she unreasonable to not pay her cleaner she cancelled on short notice. Cleaner asked for cancellation fee. Nearly 80% said “YANBU” and some called a cleaner “CF” for even asking for cancellation fee. It shows even women don’t value jobs performed mostly by other women that much.
There’s also lack of trades traditionally done by women. Actually, there’re only one I can think of: beauty. How many women are joiners, car mechanic , plumbers, builders? Trades, where they can earn good money without having a degree.

What do you think are the barriers to entry into professions like joinery, car mechanics, plumbers?

I was an apprentice in engineering in 1995 - and to be honest, I don't think things have changed much.

https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2021/11/which-btec-subjects-have-the-best-and-worst-gender-balance/.

We value the services of the person who comes in to fix the dishwasher much more than the person who looks after our children or our old people.

In fact, at GCSE and at A Level, girls out perform boys in Maths and Physics but the level of participation is much lower. There are so many reasons for this.. it starts the moment they are identified as female from the pregnancy scan!

Perhaps some of it is because some girls are raised to "aspire" to find a wealthy man rather than work towards a good career of their own, and that some boys are raised to "aspire" to be such men.

@ChateauMargaux I think the most important reason why women don’t go to trade is culture one. Woman-electrician or woman-plumber are very rare.
My brother went to the collage in our native country to be trained as electrician (although he decided to do something else in his life). There was one girl in his entire year , over 100 boys. Her schoolmates -and sometimes teachers- constantly teased her , she only went to the trade collage to find a boyfriend. She already had one and married him not long after completing her course. Eventually , she set up a small company , providing services to mainly female customers, single mothers, elderly people or families with children. She was successful and prosperous. But she had to deal with teasing first, for choosing going into trade.
It was thirty years ago in European country. Things didn’t change much since then.

That’s not my experience at all.

And when women do succeed in a formerly male dominated role they still get paid less.

For about 20 years there have been more new female solicitors than male. However female solicitors are paid less and the specialisms where most women work are most poorly paid. The men are all commercial and corporate lawyers while the family lawyers and injury lawyers are more likely to be women.

@JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon My family lawyer was loaded! She charged literally hundreds an hour!!

I also think it's notable that professions often become (relatively ) less well paid as they become largely female (doctors and lawyers being good examples )

What you charge and what you get paid are entirely different. Most of the hourly rate goes on overheads (secretaries, offices, textbooks, training) /towards the equity partners etc and of course not all the work you do is chargeable/gets actually paid (training, admin, bills that get written off etc)

It's a long time since I was in private practice but I would estimate salary at approx 10% of hourly rate...

My experience does support that (20 years in HR in aged care), a disproportionate number of our nurses in management roles are men.

@forcedfun She was a partner to be fair Still think her rates were absolute madness. When I think what, say, teachers earn...
She charged hundreds for a 10 min phone call or typing one paragraph of a letter!

@Turefu I know some women in those trades. They all ended up self employed or working for charities because of the horrendous sexism they encountered in building firms.

What they charge isn't anywhere near what they earn (even for the partners). Building costs, salary costs, insurances, registration fees etc. family law isn't where the eye wateringly well paid lawyers are hiding (bar a very small handful dealing with the billionaire clients )