Discussion

Women are getting most of the new jobs. What's going on with men?

wongarsu: > Now Reeves says what's needed are policies and programs to draw male workers into fields such as nursing, teaching and social work.This is also true for an entirely different reason: all three of these fields would benefit hugely from having more balanced gender ratios

malfist: Almost like diversity, equality and inclusion is a net positive thing for everyone

cultofmetatron: people are only starting to care because really bad things happen when you start to get a large portion of the male population being disenfranchised.

torben-friis: >Of the 369,000 jobs the Labor Department says were created since the start of Trump's second term, nearly all — 348,000 of them — went to women, with only 21,000 going to men.(...)>The lopsidedness was driven by huge growth in health care, where women hold nearly 80% of jobs. Over the past 12 months, health care alone added 390,000 jobs, more than in the economy overall,How can a part add more than the total? Are pure increase figures being mixed up with increase-reduction in the article? And if so, how is gender balanced in those figures?

DrJokepu: The rest of the economy could have added a negative number of jobs (meaning lost).

jt2190: > The lopsidedness was driven by huge growth in health care, where women hold nearly 80% of jobs. Over the past 12 months, health care alone added 390,000 jobs, more than in the economy overall, making up for job losses elsewhere.i.e. Nursing jobs mostly go to women not because men can’t do them because “nurses aren’t men”, per our current cultural norms.

hereme888: The job itself caters to the natural disposition of women much more than men. That said, having a some male nurses in every hospital to me is mandatory. You need men in those teams for various reasons. But overall the job caters to women.I also believe the number of female primary care physicians recently surpassed men. Or at least in Family Medicine, or something like that.

vivala: Point of no return.There will be more fires and at least one rich person will be eaten.

red-iron-pine: this is far too optimistic

bill_joy_fanboy: Yep. A bunch of unemployed and "unempowered" men sitting around leads to them thinking things like: "Maybe we shouldn't be so cooperative anymore."

joe_mamba: >"Maybe we shouldn't be so cooperative anymore."Present day men aren't a threat to a government's leadership, when they have weed, video games and porn at home, and testosterone levels are at their lowest levels ever.

endominus: It's frustrating that the only suggestion the experts interviewed have here is essentially blue-washing woman-dominated jobs. "For instance, many health care jobs could be framed as roles requiring the strength to lift people. Preschools could highlight the need for teachers who serve as positive male role models." Just reads as that one SMBC comic - "how can we make math pink?" As if the only way they can understand people is through the most shallow stereotypes.Yeah, you can totally fix the imbalance in the nursing sector by showing ads with a bunch of male nurses driving monster trucks into the ICU and crushing energy drink cans on patients' foreheads! Or have a cowboy ride his horse into the preschool, smoking a cigarette that he lights by dragging a match across his own thick stubble! This isn't a structural problem, it's just a question of marketing!Insulting.

Gravityloss: Psychiatric wards certainly benefit from burly guy nurses with good social skills and nerves of steel.

intrepidpar: 1. Give massive preferential treatment to women during university and hiring. 2. Women get most new jobs. 3. surprised Pikachu What's going on with men? 4. Conclude we definitely shouldn't dial back privileging women because they are still being discriminated against.

zbentley: Citation needed, bad faith suspected.Even adjusted for maternity and career entry/exit differences, the gender pay gap is still big and real. And while there is overlap and outliers, many more women-dominated industries are at lower pay segments (and with fewer benefits) than industries dominated by men.

lesuorac: Is this even relevant to their post?The article is pretty clear, Women are getting most of the new jobs because they're in fields that Men largely don't try to enter (ex. Teaching).Like whats the big initiative to increase the amount of Women with a Masters of Education? I've heard of a bunch for STEM but Men still dominate that field but that field is growing slower than other Women dominated ones so it's a non-sequitor.

elicash: > 1. Give massive preferential treatment to women during university"Some schools are trying to attract male applicants by improving their sports programs; others invest more heavily in buying boys’ email addresses or give incentives to boys that they do not offer to girls — such as free stickers or baseball caps — for filling out information on the school website. Marketing materials are sometimes designed to speak specifically to young men. Heath Einstein, dean of admission of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, recalls fondly a pamphlet known internally as the “bro-chure,” which featured shots of the football team, a rock climber and a male student shoving cake in his mouth. But the easiest way for many competitive schools to fix their gender ratios lies in the selection process, at which point admissions officers often informally privilege male applicants, a tendency that critics say amounts to affirmative action for men."https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/magazine/men-college-enro...

bill_joy_fanboy: No one believes anything the NYT says.

elicash: It's not the NYT making the claims, they are merely reporting on them. And I think it's weird to just dismiss all evidence that conflicts with your priors. But fine, how about the NY Post:https://nypost.com/2025/09/11/us-news/schools-may-be-using-a...Or how about this quote from a former admissions officer at Brandeis:"We might admit the male student and wait-list the female student because of wanting to get closer to this sort of gender parity in terms of percentages in the class."https://hechingerreport.org/an-unnoticed-result-of-the-decli...

unsupp0rted: How about adjusted for people who are welding things underwater or throwing 25 kilo garbage bins into a truck?

torben-friis: Yeah, but if we're splitting losses by gender as well then the gender difference might as well be due to men dominated fields getting shredded.As in, balanced job creation + a shitton of mostly male tech workers fired = female growth.

joe_mamba: That's why historically, leaders would send those men to die in wars. Totally not what seems to be brewing right now.

yakshaving_jgt: Postmodernist movements like DEI were never about objective reality — in fact the idea of an objective reality is outright rejected. It doesn't matter if men are being left out of jobs (statistically) — they're [according to the ideology] the eternal benefactors of invisible, omnipresent systemic privilege. This is of course the complete opposite of the ideals of liberalism and the human rights movement, which is why so many people are fundamentally at odds with common illiberal corporate policy today (although it's often difficult to articulate why without being dismissed as a bigot).For more on this, I recommend Cynical Theories[0] by Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay.[0]: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53052177-cynical-theorie...

kleiba2: > the gender pay gap is still big and realNot that big however if you control for line of work (which industry), education, prior experience, and part-time vs. full-time employment.

rirze: Here's another explanation. My hypothesis goes deeper than gender imbalance.Most job interviews are theater nowadays. It's about conformity, performative culture fitting, agreeableness (read, willing to slave away without complaining).On average, women tend to better suited for such processes. Along with immigrant groups.

lesuorac: No because the title is using the word "new jobs".If there's 100 men and 100 women employed and 100 women get fired then you have an equal number of "newly" employed people (0).If there's 100 men and 50 working women and you fire 100 men and hire 50 women then 100% of the new jobs went to Women. Same is if you didn't fire anybody and just hired 50 women.

PessimalDecimal: There's been a lot of talk about "toxic masculinity" over the years but I've heard of and would worry about the female equivalent if I were considering a role in nursing as a man. Many stories where the only man in the room is expected to be, simultaneously, a punching bag, a mediator for drama, and a willing recipient of sexual advances. Seems awful

hackyhacky: > Many stories where the only man in the room is expected to be, simultaneously, a punching bag, a mediator for drama, and a willing recipient of sexual advances.In other words, men in nursing are treated to the same indignities that women experience in most jobs?

thepryz: Or it might simply be that there is a lot of unreported or unacknowledged mistreatment of men. I recall reading a study about harassment in the restaurant industry. Both genders were harassed but harassment towards men was largely ignored in the analysis because it didn't fit the focus or narrative of the authors.As a man who has worked in a predominantly female workplace, my experience has taught me that harassment is less about gender and more about power. Those in power will always feel entitled to behave poorly, regardless of gender.

hackyhacky: > Or it might simply be that there is a lot of unreported or unacknowledged mistreatment of men.I am sure that there's a lot of unreported mistreatment of anyone who represents a minority in a given profession.

soco: First hurdle: get a guy accepting the label of "male nurse" in the days of the manosphere.

williamdclt: I don't think you should be downvoted: the article talks about this (kind of). It says there's a need of "framing jobs as more masculine" by eg emphasizing the physicality of them: making job names more masculine is totally in line with this (whether this "masculinisation" is the right solution is very debatable of course)

dude250711: The care: "women are somehow victims again, men need to step up".

throwaway173738: Are you saying this should be acceptable behavior? Am eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

hackyhacky: No, that's not at all what I'm saying.Rather, I am pointing out that irony in the hope that men, dismayed by the treatment of men in certain professions, but find within themselves the empathy to appreciate what women go through and to adjust their behavior accordingly.

general1465: The problem is that it became really hard to lead society into a war. See support for Iran war. It started basically on zero and kept cratering.Now you want to lead these males to die in war, while they are fully aware of what you are doing? At best you will get dysfunctional army fragging itself constantly. At worst you will trigger unrest because males would rather should they have an agency than be sacrificed as cattle.

MikeNotThePope: One of my relatives used to be a psychologist who did work in psychiatric facilities. He told me about a woman who was rather petite with multiple personalities. One of her personalities was a bug & burly type with anger management issues. When this personality got physical, it took several orderlies of notable size to restrain her.

boringg: Academic achievement isn't rewarded socially for boys except a select core group. Therefore you don't get as much effort on boys who aren't in that core. Knock on effects could continue through the education system to the working world.Also there is certainly a world right now that says, oh your a man? Life is pretty grand to be a man - especially if you are a certain social economic class. There is some truth to that but thats the exception not the rule.

lotsofpulp: In the US, there is (and has been) a pretty solid route from academic achievement to high incomes, and from there, higher incomes leads to larger selection of potential mates.I don’t see how boys are not rewarded socially for academic achievement. If anything, men have lower physical attractiveness standards, so men are more rewarded than women for the same amount of academic achievement.

guzfip: - nursing: I don’t want to work 60-70 hours a week at your horrific body shop of a PE asset- teaching: unruly kids. Bully’s get protected and those who stand up get punished. There’s some level of societal distrust of men around children not their own.- social work: you’re exposed to some of the worst most horrific side of society constantly for peanut pay. You’re constantly in a position where you want to help people, but are constrained by things far outside your power.Yeah I don’t care how “masculine” you try to frame them, just not interested.

williamdclt: That's a shallow analysis. These reasons (which are very reasonable) aren't inherently gendered, yet don't seem to deter women as they make up something like 80-90% of these jobs, they're not "just not interested".So... seems like gender _does_ have something to do with that? Maybe just maybe more women gravitate towards these roles because these roles are associated with traditionally-feminine values (care, empathy, nurture)?Maybe you're "just not interested" because as a man, you've been educated with traditionally-masculine values (strength? protection? power?), and if you had grown up in an environment where these roles are associated to these values, you'd be potentially-interested in them despite their obvious downsides

belorn: It amazing how the language differ in this kind of article when the roles are reversed. In the past we talked about inclusion, discrimination, and industries that excluded women. Now we have statements like "make girly jobs appeal to manly men.". I can just imagine how well received the statement "make manly jobs appeal to girly women" would had been around 2010.It seems unlikely that the success of women in STEM was based on making STEM more feminine, and helping women understand that they can have STEM roles and still stay feminine. It seems more plausible that affirmative action, privileged opportunities, exclusive spaces, and preferential hiring practices had more to do in making women in STEM successful than words about femininity and masculinity.

lesuorac: Isn't it only a question of marketing?There's only so many lumberjacks needed in an economy. Sure you can depress the wages for awhile but there's still a limit.So you need Men do to something else and the way you do that is with marketing (and also with Men being unemployed until they accept a nursing job).

Tangurena2: There have been some studies that show once female participation in a field/career gets past about 40%, males tend to leave (or at a minimum, fail to enter) that field/career. Historically, school teachers and secretaries were male fields. Then in WW1, there weren't enough men available, so women were encouraged to enter those jobs. After WW1, those same jobs weren't seen as "manly" enough and male participation never recovered.

thepryz: Also worth noting that several studies have shown pay differentials to be highly correlated with women being less likely to negotiate compensation or ask for less.https://www.nber.org/digest/apr13/do-women-avoid-salary-nego...

joe_mamba: >See support for Iran war. It started basically on zero and kept cratering.Until the glowies stage a false flag attack on home soil to pin it on Iran.

general1465: Which will likely be immediately called out as so. See recently (few days ago) when Orban's goons put explosives on gas pipes in Serbia going towards Hungary and then loudly blaming Ukraine.Everybody immediately knew that this would make no sense for Ukraine to do that - i.e. Why would they just plant explosives to be found, when they would blow it up on spot if they really wanted?. Whole thing kind of fizzled out because nobody took the bait.

yakshaving_jgt: That would be true if those ideals were applied in alignment with liberal values. However, the most common material form of DEI is rooted in postmodernism and its various offshoot theories (queer theory, critical race theory, intersectionality, post-colonial theory, etc) in which colourblindness is inherently racist.So, no, not really.

malfist: So many boogiemen in your post.Tell me, exactly, why does the study of queer people mean diversity and inclusion is bad?Not even going to touch your idea that colorblind racism isn't racism.

PessimalDecimal: What you're doing here is part of the problem. "Suck it up, buttercup!"Many men would rather not work and deal with the financial and social consequences of that than deal with the toxicity both in the workplace and later on if they talk about it.

torben-friis: If there's 100 men and a 100 women, you hire 50 men and 50 women, and separately 50 men are fired, total is +50 growth all women, despite the fact that non absolute job creation was balanced. I'm wondering if the author is missing this effect.The net result is the same, but in the case in my example there is no barrier to men getting jobs.In fact, if you start with a male dominated economy and it gets progressively balanced, you would see years of absolute female job creation, and that would not imply men are blocked from entering the workforce, just that the male dominated generations are exiting the market as they age and being replaced by a more balanced mix.

defrost: Who still lifts garbage cans into a truck, male or female?It's been cab and camera operated hydraulic lifts on wheelie bins for decades here.

vharuck: Men are also often the primary breadwinners in families, so they feel the need to take a higher paying job. In families where the husband's job pays well, the wife's career options can be decided by personal fulfillment. Teachers are respected (but not paid well), nurses are respected and can earn a good amount, and social work is a very self-fulfilling role (I don't think society holds them in esteem more than other professionals).If we want men to take up certain roles, we need to pay more. That's the simplicity of capitalism and free markets. We bend ourselves into knots trying to find clever and (maybe) cheaper solutions to thorny problems.

yakshaving_jgt: Your comment is clearly made in bad faith (and queer theory is not "the study of queer people").Read this first, and then come back to me: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53052177-cynical-theorie...

malfist: Yeah, not reading a far right nonsense book. I'm a queer person, I think I know what queer theory is.

hackyhacky: > What you're doing here is part of the problem. "Suck it up, buttercup!"I literally have no idea how you could have extracted that interpretation from my comment.

bill_joy_fanboy: Tell that to the people who can't get hired because of their gender and skin color (males who happen to be White).

Larrikin: They do not existWhat happened was unqualified people stopped getting jobs and found groups of people to blame it on.

zulux: My white son and his asian friends got denied for the local state school, while the DEI types waltzed right in with shitty grades.

kyralis: > It doesn't matter if men are being left out of jobs (statistically) — they're [according to the ideology] the eternal benefactors of invisible, omnipresent systemic privilege.This implies a contradiction that doesn't exist.Centuries ago, the aristocracy was statistically left out of jobs and also the eternal benefactors of (quite visible!) omnipresent systemic privilege.There are multiple potential reasons for men to, statistically, be taking fewer of a set of newly created roles. It could certainly be some systemic bias against them, but it could easily also be that they are choosing not to take them for what are surely good reasons for themselves. It could be that fewer men are interested in new jobs right now period, relative to women. I'm sure there are many other potential explanations as well.