But the gender mix has not changed in all jobs equally. Visit a construction site or a health care facility and apart from the clothes, you might not be so sure that you're in the 21st Century. These occupations are not much less gender segregated now than they were sixty years ago.
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| Source: Current Population Survey |
- Half a percent of carpenters were female. By 2010 women's employment had reached just one and a half percent.
- Ninety-four percent of "stenographers, typists, and secretaries" were women. By 2010 this had grown to ninety-six percent.
- Ninety-eight percent of nurses were women. After a lot of effort at recruiting and retaining men, this dropped to 90 percent by 2010.
 |
| Source: Decennial Census, 1950 |
Despite our efforts, however, many CTE courses remain stubbornly male or female. Trades courses like Automotive Technology or Welding are predominantly male across the state. So are IT courses like Computer Networking and Robotics (though the introductory courses like Computer Information Systems have no trouble attracting females). Most of our Health Science courses remain predominantly female, as do many that prepare students for office careers. Unsurprisingly, the CTE courses that commonly fail to meet the Perkins target are those preparing students for occupations that continue to be dominated by one gender.
Changing Gender Separation, 1950-2000
The method of classifying occupations and counting employment has changed several times since the 1950s, so it is difficult, or at least tediously time-consuming, to make a precise comparison between occupations across the decades. Nonetheless, the table below gives a rough idea of the gender differences in employment across the late 20th century. We see that the managerial, professional, and sales occupational groups become more evenly balanced between 1950 and 2000 as many women entering the labor force moved into these occupations. Women entering the labor force generally did not move into traditionally male-dominated blue collar occupational groups. Men did not shift into the traditionally female-dominated clerical, office and administrative support occupational groups. Nor did they move into traditionally female-dominated health care and education occupations included in the professional occupational group shown here.
| Percent Female in Major Occupational Groups | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | 1980 | 2000 | |||
| Managers, officials and proprietors (including farmers) | 9% | Executive, administrative, and managerial | 31% | Management | 36% |
| Business and financial | 54% | ||||
| Professional, technical, and kindred | 39% | Professional specialty and technicians | 48% | Professional | 56% |
| Service workers | 45% | Service | 59% | Service | 57% |
| Private household workers | 95% | ||||
| Sales workers | 34% | Sales occupations | 49% | Sales and related | 50% |
| Clerical and kindred workers | 62% | Administrative and support | 77% | Office and administrative support | 75% |
| Farm laborers and foremen | 19% | Farming, forestry and fishing | 15% | Farming, fishing, and forestry | 21% |
| Craftsmen, foremen, and kindred | 3% | Precision production, craft and repair | 8% | Construction and extraction | 3% |
| Installation, maintenance, and repair | 5% | ||||
| Operatives and kindred workers | 27% | Operators, fabricators and laborers | 27% | Production | 32% |
| Laborers except farm and mine | 4% | Transportation and material moving | 16% | ||
Source: 1950, 1980, 2000 Decennial Census
Gender Distribution, 2010-2020
Although some big changes in the gender distribution of the workforce took place in the mid 20th century, the pace of change has been much slower since then. The charts below show the number of men and women employed in 2000 and 2010 in each of the eleven major occupational groups covered by the Census. The Professional group, by far the largest in both decades, employs a slight majority of women (in green). Farming, Fishing, & Forestry is by far the smallest group and is heavily male-dominated.
 |
| Source: 2000 Census and 2010 American Community Survey |
The Census provides more detailed breakouts of occupational groups in the large Professional and Service sectors, as shown in the table below. Although the Professional sector as a whole is relatively balanced, this is not true of subgroups within it. The Architecture & Engineering, Computer & Mathematics, and Protective Service subgroups are majority male while the Education, Healthcare, and Personal Service subgroups are majority female.
In other words, despite the influx of women into the workforce since 1950, and significant efforts to eliminate gender segregation, many of the stereotypes that we have about gender and occupations hold roughly true. Occupational groups that have a large personal service component tend to be majority female, while technical and manual occupations tend to be dominated by men, patterns that have held steady for many years.
| Percent Female in Professional and Service Subgroups | ||
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | 2010 | |
| PROFESSIONAL OCCUPATIONS | 56% | 58% |
| Architecture and engineering | 13% | 15% |
| Computer and mathematical | 30% | 27% |
| Life, physical, and social science | 41% | 45% |
| Arts, entertainment, and related | 48% | 47% |
| Legal | 47% | 53% |
| Community and social services | 60% | 62% |
| Education, training, and library | 75% | 74% |
| Healthcare practitioners/techs | 74% | 75% |
| SERVICE OCCUPATIONS | 57% | 57% |
| Protective service | 20% | 23% |
| Building and grounds | 40% | 40% |
| Food preparation and serving | 57% | 56% |
| Personal care and service | 79% | 78% |
| Healthcare support | 88% | 88% |
Shifting Gender Balance, 2000-2010
By focusing in a little more closely on the numbers, we can see just where changes in the gender balance of occupational groups have taken place over the last decade. Most groups changed fairly little, and the shifts may not portend anything about the future direction of change. The Construction and Education groups, for example, became a fraction of a percent more male over the decade, probably just by random chance.
The charts below show how the traditionally majority male and traditionally majority female occupational groups have changed in the last decade. Each contains some groups that are "trending male" (seeing an increase in the percentage of male workers) and some that are trending female (seeing an increase in the percentage of female workers). Half of the majority-male occupation groups saw an increase in the percentage of female workers between 2000 and 2010, while the others became still more male-dominated. The same is true for groups that were majority female in 2000; some became more balanced, while others saw an increase in female employment.
 |
| Source: 2000 Census and 2010 American Community Survey |
Among the 14 majority male groups, three saw notable shifts.
- Life, Physical, and Social Science became increasingly female, shifting from 41 percent female in 2000 to 45 percent female in 2010.
- The Legal group is almost perfectly balanced, but tipped fractionally toward female dominance, shifting from 47 to 51 percent female.
- The Production and Computer & Mathematics occupational groups became even more male dominated than before. Production shifted from 68 to 71 percent male and, despite a decade of efforts to train women in computer science, that field shifted from 71 to 73 percent male.
Among the eight majority female occupation groups:
- Community & Social Services became even more female, shifting from 58 percent female in 2000 to 63 percent female in 2010.
- Several groups shifted to become more male, but none by as much as 2 percent.
Data on the gender balance in occupational groups shows that:
Perhaps, therefore, it is time to do away with gender equity requirements in the Perkins Act. It is possible that this will happen. Gender is not mentioned in Investing in America’s Future: A Blueprint for Transforming Career and Technical Education, the most recent document on Perkins reauthorization from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Vocational and Adult Education.
It has been suggested that remaining gender imbalances in occupations today are rarely the result of discrimination, but are instead the result of individual preference. Given increasing opportunities to work in the mid-century, women flooded into the expanding professional and service sectors. But they stayed away, and continue to stay away, from blue collar and technical work, perhaps because of the work itself, or perhaps because the hours and inflexible schedules demanded in these fields were incompatible with their other interests and needs.
If it is true that gender imbalance at work is the result of preference not discrimination, then perhaps the Perkins requirements are simply an ineffective sort of social engineering that ultimately takes time away from the more important job of imparting skills and improving opportunities. Perhaps we should direct our scarce resources elsewhere.
But perhaps not.
While I think it is misguided to punish schools for failing to meet the 25 percent nontraditional target in fields that have failed to even approach this in the actual workplace, I also believe firmly in the importance of expending effort to insure that every CTE course is welcoming to both genders. Every student deserves the opportunity to explore every career, make an informed decision about the pathway they choose, and choose a nontraditional option if that meets their needs and interests.
I hope that with or without the incentive provided by Perkins requirements, teachers and schools will still find the time to make sure that courses really are inviting to both genders. I hope they will feel that it's worth it to figure out how to help two or three guys arrange their schedules so they can take a nursing class, or to provide extra instruction to girls who want to excel in classes where they might not have as much experience, such as in automotive technology. Keeping nontraditional pathways open will always take extra effort and commitment. Without this effort, the minority can so easily be excluded from opportunity.
- Technical and blue collar groups have remained majority male since the 1950s.
- Office occupations and those with a large element of personal service, such as health care and education, have remained majority female.
- Professional, managerial, and sales occupations that are not strongly characterized by personal service have become more gender balanced since the mid 20th century.
Perhaps, therefore, it is time to do away with gender equity requirements in the Perkins Act. It is possible that this will happen. Gender is not mentioned in Investing in America’s Future: A Blueprint for Transforming Career and Technical Education, the most recent document on Perkins reauthorization from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Vocational and Adult Education.
It has been suggested that remaining gender imbalances in occupations today are rarely the result of discrimination, but are instead the result of individual preference. Given increasing opportunities to work in the mid-century, women flooded into the expanding professional and service sectors. But they stayed away, and continue to stay away, from blue collar and technical work, perhaps because of the work itself, or perhaps because the hours and inflexible schedules demanded in these fields were incompatible with their other interests and needs.
If it is true that gender imbalance at work is the result of preference not discrimination, then perhaps the Perkins requirements are simply an ineffective sort of social engineering that ultimately takes time away from the more important job of imparting skills and improving opportunities. Perhaps we should direct our scarce resources elsewhere.
But perhaps not.
While I think it is misguided to punish schools for failing to meet the 25 percent nontraditional target in fields that have failed to even approach this in the actual workplace, I also believe firmly in the importance of expending effort to insure that every CTE course is welcoming to both genders. Every student deserves the opportunity to explore every career, make an informed decision about the pathway they choose, and choose a nontraditional option if that meets their needs and interests.
I hope that with or without the incentive provided by Perkins requirements, teachers and schools will still find the time to make sure that courses really are inviting to both genders. I hope they will feel that it's worth it to figure out how to help two or three guys arrange their schedules so they can take a nursing class, or to provide extra instruction to girls who want to excel in classes where they might not have as much experience, such as in automotive technology. Keeping nontraditional pathways open will always take extra effort and commitment. Without this effort, the minority can so easily be excluded from opportunity.
