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Pink-collar worker

A pink-collar worker is someone working in the care-oriented career field or in fields historically considered to be women's work. This may include jobs in the beauty industry, nursing, social work, teaching, secretarial work, or child care.[1] While these jobs may also be filled by men, they have historically been female-dominated (a tendency that continues today, though to a somewhat lesser extent) and may pay significantly less than white-collar or blue-collar jobs.[2]

Women's work – notably with the delegation of women to particular fields within the workplace – began to rise in the 1940s, in concurrence with World War II.[3]

Interior designer

Landscape designer

21st-century female working world (United Kingdom)[edit]

Today, the economy in the United Kingdom still shows a prominent divide in a workforce with many occupations still labeled as "pink-collar".[3] 28% of women worked jobs labeled under "pink-collar" in Rotherham, a town in northern England. This study was conducted in 2010.[3] In the United Kingdom, careers within nursing and teaching are not considered pink-collar jobs anymore, but instead are labeled as white-collar. This shift is also occurring in many other countries.[3] Studies show that white-collar workers are less likely to face health disparities.[3]

Pink ghetto[edit]

"Pink ghetto" is a term used to refer to jobs dominated by women. The term was coined in 1983 to describe the limits women have in furthering their careers since the jobs are often dead-end, stressful and underpaid. The term pink ghetto is just simply another way of describing pink-collar work. Pink ghetto was more commonly used in the early years, when women were finally able to work. Pink-collar work became the popular term once it was popularized by Louise Kapp Howe, a writer and social critic, in the 1970s.


Pink ghetto can also describe the placement of female managers into positions that will not lead them to the board room, thus perpetuating the "glass ceiling". This includes managing areas such as human resources, customer service, and other areas that do not contribute to the corporate "bottom line". While this allows women to rise in ranks as a manager, their careers may eventually stall out and they may be excluded from the upper echelons.[49][50][51]

Pink or velvet ghetto in the field of public relations[edit]

The pink collar ghetto, also known as the velvet ghetto, concerns the phenomena of women entering a certain field employment and subsequently the status and pay grade of this profession drops along with the new influx of women workers. Some scholars, such as Elizabeth Toth, claim this is partially the result of women taking technician roles instead of managerial roles, being less likely to negotiate higher pay, and being assumed to be putting family life before work, even when that is not the case.[52]


Other scholars, such as Kim Golombisky, acknowledge the inequalities of women, and especially certain minority groups and different classes, as part of the cause of this phenomenon.


Traditionally, Feminism in public relations focuses on gender equality, but new scholarship makes claims that focusing on social justice would better aid feminist cause in the field. This brings the idea of intersectionalism to the pink collar ghetto. The issue is not caused by what women lack as professionals, but caused by larger societal injustices and interlocking systems of oppression that systematically burden women.[53]

Male integration[edit]

Scholars such as Judy Wajcman argue that technology has long been monopolized by men and is a great source of their power historically.[54] However, more millennial men are doing pink collar work because technology is affecting blue collar work. Machines are able to perform many of the tasks that were typically gendered male within factories. In a 1990 study conducted by Allan H. Hunt and Timothy L. Hunt, they examined how industrial robots would impact both the creation of jobs as well as job displacement among unskilled workers in the United States. It was concluded that the impact of unemployment due to the spread of robotics would be felt the greatest by uneducated, unskilled blue-collar workers. New technology in the form of robotics eliminates many semi or unskilled jobs, and has taken traditional male filled roles away from the job market.[55] Judy Wajcman maintains that skills involving machines and strength are associated with masculinity.[56] This means that the least technical jobs (pink-collar) jobs are associated with women. These machines designed by men, using the technology they have always monopolized, are now displacing them and forcing them into pink-collar work widely viewed as a step down specifically due to negative associations with "women's work".


It was found as well that men going into traditionally claimed pink collar jobs are felt discriminated and threatened in their jobs.[57] Men going into positions such as teaching, nursing, and childcare faced many negative stereotypes in these lines of work, as men have traditionally been viewed as professional, strong, and holding dominant attitudes.


According to the 2016 United States Census analyzed in Barnes, et al.'s research paper, approximately 78% of men were employed in cleaning and maintenance, engineering and science, production and transportation, protective services, and construction. Only 25% were in healthcare support, personal care, education, office administration support, and social services.[5]

Men in pink-collar jobs[edit]

Steele's research concludes that ongoing hostility will result in lower workplace performance and employment retention of men in traditional pink-collar occupations.[58] Although men in a woman-dominated professional environment face stereotyping, they are still likely to receive higher praise, a higher salary, more opportunities, and more promotions.[58] Men who have worked in pink-collar jobs for longer periods of time are less likely to quit their profession or notice stereotyping, while recently hired men have a smaller retention rate.[58] The Australian Bureau of Statistics determined that less than 20% of elementary school teachers were men.[58]

Blue-collar worker

Designation of workers by collar color

Office lady

White-collar worker

Women's work

Glass escalator

Gourley, Catherine (2008). Gibson Girls and Suffragists: Perceptions of Women from 1900 to 1918 (Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books)  978-0-8225-7150-6

ISBN

Humowitz, Carol; Weissman, Michelle (1978). A History of Women in America (New York: Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith)  0-553-20762-8

ISBN

Ware, Susan (1982). Holding Their Own. Boston: G.K. Hall & Co.  978-0-8057-9900-2.

ISBN

Woloch, Nancy (1984). . New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 978-0-394-53515-9.

Women and the American Experience

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

Workers in the Pink Collar Market Place

Women Work! Women in the Workforce

Statistics on Women

9to5, National Association of Working Women