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

[LorlieS]

Why is this still "the norm?"

Just because her hourly rate was hundreds doesn't mean she got paid that.

Her hourly rate is set by her firm and has to cover all the expenses of running the business, from office rent and utilities, to secretarial costs, including things like credit control and bad debts, printing, insurance (which is huge), professional regulator fees, ongoing training, website development and hosting, it support etc etc.

In reality most family solicitors have done four or five years at university plus two years workplace training and won't be earning big money.

@Deathbyfluffy it's my experience.
In our hospital, all the modern matrons are men. We have only just recruited our first ever female ops manager. Male nurses are thought of as more natural leaders and I've openly heard managers discussing who to promote based on their 'baggage' or 'dedication to the job'. Which plays to men's strengths. They appear more 'dedicated' but that's because they have someone at home doing everything else.

Is there data supporting this? Do men just do different minimum wage jobs? Like street cleaning, delivery drops, night shifts at the supermarket, factory work?

I've always thought though that men have an advantage when it comes to labouring jobs, as they are low skilled but a good daily rate. And then those trade professions which are always in demand. Yes I know some women do them, but a lot less will.

They are generally easy to get without extra time put into getting qualifications specific to the job, an easy option after a break for childcare, and convenient to find for any required hours.
Higher paid jobs are much more likely to require childcare as there aren't as many with evening or night options.

Because we are a very sexist society. So long as a discipline is female-dominated, the pay will be lower than for men.

Women & children always have been the bottom of the pile. Poverty? Overwhelmingly single mothers.

This thread is enlightening. I didn't really understand what the gender pay gap meant. Thank you for the discuss.
Off to look at the Philippa Gregory book now.

@Musomama1 the thing is that I couldn't be a brick layer, physically. I just couldn't. You are paid by brick. So my hourly wage would be a third what a six foot, 300lb guys would be.

@FarleyHatcherEsq I wonder whether dexterous nimble fingered women are paid hourly or by item, on factory lines?

Care work involved heavy work- lifting and results in injury- in the home and in settings. Still poorly paid.

Much work women do is seen as unskilled and undervalued- even in the home. Cooking, cleaning, laundry- there are hidden skills.
Many men assume it’s easy and any idiot can do it, so do tasks without paying any attention to what they do, and ruin things. Like, letting washing dry in a crumpled heap or leaving it in the machine too long. Ruining food or refusing to plan so there’s nothing left to make a meal with.

Work women start doing stops being well paid- secretarial work.
Work men take over becomes better paid- the women programmers at Nassa.

And that’s before the impact of other responsibilities- home, care, child rearing etc.

Many of these jobs are part time roles that fit around school hours.

There absolutely is data on this, hence gender pay gap reporting.

Men do different unskilled/low skilled work to women and the jobs men pick get paid more highly. The campaign now is not just about equal pay for the same job, it is equal pay for work of equal value.

The minimum wage is helping to stop women's work from getting left behind in terms of pay but it is still an issue.

Why is a bin man paid more than a cleaner working the same hours? Why did warehouse staff at a supermarket get paid more than shop floor staff?

Then there are the barriers to women moving into men's jobs....

I suggest reading invisible women and signing up for Caroline Criado-Perez's mailing list to get you really angry about the barriers still facing women.

I trained in a trade 30yrs ago, I was the only woman for most of the course. I very quickly diversified off into the design side of the trade. Whilst I did experience some sexism, especially in industrial settings, it was the physical side of the job that I struggled with. I'm not delicatley built and was very fit when younger, but I didn't seem to have the required strength or stamina. It took me longer to complete tasks and I found the 45+ hour weeks (overtime time was expected) physically gruelling. There were also long term health aspects to the job.

Many women don't want to be bricklaying, refuse collecting, working in heavy industry. Many aren't physically cut out for it.
I don't think we should be fixating on the divisions in job description, only divisions in pay and any divisions which prevent women from accessing a career of her choice.

If societal expectations are limiting a women's choice of career, then that needs to be addressed. But if it is the case that women are more nurturing and because of that, they take on caring responsibilities, then the taxation and benefit system should be set up to accommodate that.

I'd also add that we undervalue jobs that are currently minimum wage. It shouldn't matter that many women work in caring professions or retail for example. They should have a proper living wage for doing so. I though Covid might have changed how we see our keyworkers, but if anything things are worse. The attitude displayed on Mumsnet towards cleaners, nannies and retail workers is often appalling.

@ChateauMargaux

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

I'd love to see the statistics for self employed who are earning equivalent to NMW or below as there are so many taxi drivers, window cleaners, delivery drivers, handymen, etc who are barely making NMW after business expenses. Not to say there aren't self employed women also making next to nothing, i.e. cleaners, seamstresses, craft shops, etc. I've never found any statistics though.

I do get a feeling that men are more likely to go down the self employment route rather than take "low pay" traditional work in shops, care homes, etc., which may skew the figures.

But I think a lot of that is down to jobs higher up the pay scale getting smaller rises than the very high NMW increases over the past few years meaning the differentials are getting smaller, so people with managerial duties, qualifications, experience, etc., don't think they're getting paid enough for the extras compared with NMW shop workers for example.

I think physical differences are overlooked. I’m a 5ft female and can barely open a can of coke, I’m not going into construction or building or the police. I’m the size and weight of a frigging 10 year old.

Obviously this doesn’t apply to all women but being petite framed makes manual work a bit harder!!!

So men are being paid more for being bigger?
And women’s jobs, like manual handling of children, care work, don’t require long hours of heavy work?
Wrangling a squirming 3yr old for a nappy change, or into a car seat, or in and out of a bath, aren’t lightweight tasks either. Followed by a few loads of wet laundry, loading and unloading, putting away a week’s worth of food it’s pretty hard work.

I know some jobs require strength and stamina women are less likely to have, but that doesn’t mean those jobs should be paid more.

Do we pay according to value added? At some levels that’s the assumption.
Do we pay according to need for survival? In that case pay people with children more than those without.

These are really complicated questions- at the moment 20yr olds are paid less than 22yr olds for the same work. Is that actually ok?

What about market forces? Where do they land?

So men are being paid more for being bigger?
And women’s jobs, like manual handling of children, care work, don’t require long hours of heavy work?
Wrangling a squirming 3yr old for a nappy change, or into a car seat, or in and out of a bath, aren’t lightweight tasks either. Followed by a few loads of wet laundry, loading and unloading, putting away a week’s worth of food it’s pretty hard work.

I've done traditionally female jobs and worked in an industrial trade and they are not physically comparable. Both are hard and I'd say the mental aspect of dealing with children and people who require care (which I am absolutely not cut out for either!) is worse. But the sheer physicality of some trades is back breaking. I'm also a tenant farmer's daughter, so I've been used to hard work in poor weather.

But the point I agree with you on is that men shouldn't be paid more because they are often (not always, obviously) more physically capable.

The fact is also that many jobs which tend to be male dominated eg stem fields are much more lucrative and wealth creating than women dominated jobs.

not discounting all the other factors but this is important.

I don't know, I reckon as women start to move into those areas the salaries will take a downward trajectory.

I work in a profession that was once male dominated and highly paid. ...the salary gradually got eroded pretty much in direct correlation to the amount of women in the profession

Why is that?
Is it because women take maternity leave, whilst the men romp ahead? Or take part-time so accrue less experience?

Not sure how you fix that. I wouldn't want women to be denied that choice, in fact we've fought for women to have maternity benefits, although it should never be an enforced choice.

<a class="break-all" href="https://izajoels.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9012-1-6www.wired.co.uk/article/the-gig-economy-is-much-worse-for-womenwww.google.com/url?opi=89978449&rct=j&sa=t&source=web&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ilo.org%2Fwcmsp5%2Fgroups%2Fpublic%2F---ed_norm%2F---relconf%2Fdocuments%2Fmeetingdocument%2Fwcms_629239.pdf&usg=AOvVaw06b1J4URAXYQXzbOwnJWD9&ved=2ahUKEwjDyu7o5-GDAxULU6QEHYKyCL0QFnoECC8QAQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://izajoels.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9012-1-6

<a class="break-all" href="https://izajoels.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9012-1-6www.wired.co.uk/article/the-gig-economy-is-much-worse-for-womenwww.google.com/url?opi=89978449&rct=j&sa=t&source=web&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ilo.org%2Fwcmsp5%2Fgroups%2Fpublic%2F---ed_norm%2F---relconf%2Fdocuments%2Fmeetingdocument%2Fwcms_629239.pdf&usg=AOvVaw06b1J4URAXYQXzbOwnJWD9&ved=2ahUKEwjDyu7o5-GDAxULU6QEHYKyCL0QFnoECC8QAQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.wired.co.uk/article/the-gig-economy-is-much-worse-for-women

<a class="break-all" href="https://izajoels.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2193-9012-1-6www.wired.co.uk/article/the-gig-economy-is-much-worse-for-womenwww.google.com/url?opi=89978449&rct=j&sa=t&source=web&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ilo.org%2Fwcmsp5%2Fgroups%2Fpublic%2F---ed_norm%2F---relconf%2Fdocuments%2Fmeetingdocument%2Fwcms_629239.pdf&usg=AOvVaw06b1J4URAXYQXzbOwnJWD9&ved=2ahUKEwjDyu7o5-GDAxULU6QEHYKyCL0QFnoECC8QAQ" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---relconf/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_629239.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjDyu7o5-GDAxULU6QEHYKyCL0QFnoECC8QAQ&usg=AOvVaw06b1J4URAXYQXzbOwnJWD9

@user1497207191 ... you seem determined to find something to defend your position. If you find it.. please let me know. In the meantime, please read the links above.

At every turn, in every situation, women are hampered by societal pressure to do unpaid work and the inescapable and inexplicable bias that prevents all people from paying men and women equally.

For every man working in a poorly paid precarious job, there is more than one woman being paid less, for fewer hours living more precariously and facing the additional burden and barrier to employment that is unpaid work that falls to her.

ChateauMargaux
Your links are broken.

I don't think it's that, because it's the profession as a whole (men and women). I think it's the inherent (subconscious?) societal misogyny that sees a job done predominantly by women as some how lesser., however complex and specialist it is.

They sure are .. wtf!?!.. will try again in a bit..