- When hearing these jobs, do you think of a man, a woman or both? Nurse, farmer, au pair, detective, butcher, secretary, surgeon, babysitter
- Which are the most male-dominated professions in your country?
- Which jobs, if any, do you feel women do better than men? Why?
- Are there any jobs that are more suitable for men or women? Why?
- Do you think there is discrimination in the workplace in your country?
- If so, in what ways? Can you give some examples?
- In what sort of jobs or professions do women face discrimination? Why?
- Have there been any 'firsts' for women in your country, like Penny Jamieson, who was made Bishop of Dunedin in New Zealand in 1990?
- In your home, how is housework divided?
- Who does most of the housework?
- Describe the division of housework in your household and when your parents were your age.
I kind of cringe at the term male nurse because, you know, I’m a nurse, you know, it just so happens I am a guy.
Kevin Kaiser is one of a small but growing number of men who are registered nurses. Nursing, like teaching and waitressing are among the occupations that have long been dominated by women. Economists call such occupations ‘pink collar jobs’. But a New York Times analysis shows that men are increasingly donning the pink collar. Men say these jobs are stable, challenging, and often a better fit.
I enjoy the complexity of the patients. I like the flexibility. I basically create my own schedule.
We are seeing now men gravitate into areas that they weren’t so anxious to get into before: neonatal, a lot of male nurses are now in pediatrics, and that’s one, I’ve been a nurse for 40 years, that’s definitely a change.
Now we see a lot of men in pink collar jobs, and there are a couple of reasons for that. One is that those are the jobs that are growing.
Ghilarducci is a behavioural economist who researches workforce issues.
Also the jobs for women, that women dominate are in such high demand that the pay is increasing.
My pay is premium, my benefits are premium, I get subsidized housing across the street. The increase in pay and benefits has been tremendous over the years, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t understand why more men are doing this.
30 years ago Ryan was one of the few men who chose to face the social stigma associated with women’s work.
When I first started in nursing, the culture of nursing was much, much different. If a physician walked into the nurse station, nurses were expected to stand up and let that physician sit down. Now for a guy doing that, you know, not used to sort of demerge to someone else, that was difficult for me to do.
I think young men aren’t settled with the kind of sexism than older men are. They are working along, women are their equals, and that working with a woman and being supervised by a woman would be demeaning.
I ‘ve seen different kinds of guys now. Now you see guys that you’d meet in a neighbourhood bar, the guy who was doing an engineer’s job or something, and I do see people with degrees in other fields.
One of the reasons why it is so important from an economist’s point of view that occupations are integrated is because it makes the economy more efficient. We economists have been talking about that from day one, that if you have artificial barriers to a job, they don’t have people getting the best matches.
I mean, you can go and bang a hammer on the side of a building if you want to or you can sit down and shuffle paper and talk to people on telephone trying to sell them insurance, but you are not going to feel good at the end of the day like you do with this job.
