Via Sociological Images, a new report from Women's Policy Research finds that jobs in the U.S. are typically segregated by gender. The divide is particularly acute in jobs that do not require a college education, a market in which men can find better-paying work in construction and women find more jobs as cashiers, for example. The lowest-paying jobs for women pay less than the lowest-paying jobs for men.
As Sociological Images points out, this is a different kind of wage discrimination. Setting aside that women who compete directly with men for the same kinds of jobs are paid less, women are also typically kept out of the jobs that pay more, even at very low levels. It's not just that women are blocked from getting those jobs; it's that work we believe is feminized is inherently valued less.
On the bright side, jobs that require more education are less segregated by sex, but the integration of the work force has slowed since a dramatic shift in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The divide is especially harmful now, since men in low-paying jobs were the hardest hit, and as Latoya Peterson pointed out, that leaves women in low-paying jobs as the sole breadwinners for families.
-- Monica Potts
