(Press-News.org) SAN FRANCISCO — Is a man without a four-year college degree better off trying to land a well-paying but insecure job in traditionally male fields such as manufacturing or construction, or should he consider lower-paying but steadier employment in a female-dominated field?
Janette Dill, a University of Akron sociology professor, and her colleagues try to answer that question in a new study she will present at the 109th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.
"It's such a hard labor market if you don't have a college degree," Dill says. "You're just really shut out from jobs that pay a decent wage."
While manufacturing has been declining for decades and construction is highly cyclical, healthcare continues its steady rise. The healthcare and social assistance sector will add 5 million jobs from 2012 to 2022, accounting for nearly one-third of all job growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects.
Dill and sociology professors Kim Price-Glynn, of the University of Connecticut, and Carter Rakovski, of California State University-Fullerton, analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data to compare how low-skill men in male-dominated occupations fared in comparison with men in "frontline" healthcare jobs that do not require a four-year degree and are dominated by women (nursing assistants, administrative workers, and others).
They found that although male frontline healthcare workers earned less than male blue-collar workers, the blue-collar workers were more likely to be laid off.
"It's sort of a trade-off," Dill says. "You can either go into manufacturing and make higher wages, but you may lose your job, or you can go into healthcare and have a higher degree of job stability."
The researchers found no evidence that men were leaving male-dominated occupations for frontline healthcare jobs. The lower pay, along with the stigma men may feel doing "women's work," are among the reasons.
However, frontline allied healthcare jobs — surgical technicians and the like, which require a two-year degree or equivalent, involve more technical expertise, and pay more than traditionally female-dominated healthcare jobs — are a different story.
"We see a high rate of growth of men going into these occupations," Dill says.
In 2001, men made up 17 percent of frontline allied healthcare workers. By the end of the decade, it was 26 percent.
The authors raise the possibility that for men without a four-year college degree, frontline allied healthcare jobs may be the ticket to a stable middle-class lifestyle as they pay better and are more stable than blue collar work.
INFORMATION:
About the American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (http://www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society.
The paper, "Is There a Penalty for Caring? Careers of Men in Caring Occupations Versus Male-Dominated Occupations," will be presented on Tuesday, Aug. 19, at 12:30 p.m. PDT in San Francisco at the American Sociological Association's 109th Annual Meeting.
To obtain a copy of the paper; for assistance reaching the study's author(s); or for more information on other ASA presentations, members of the media can contact Daniel Fowler, ASA Media Relations Manager, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org. During the Annual Meeting (Aug. 16-19), ASA Public Information Office staff can be reached in the on-site press office, located in the Hilton San Francisco Union Square's Union Square 1-2 Room, at (415) 923-7506 or (914) 450-4557 (cell).
This press release was written by Roger Mezger, University of Akron. For more information about the study, members of the media can also contact Eileen Korey, Chief Communications Officer, Associate Vice President, University of Akron, at (330) 972-8589 or korey@uakron.edu.
Papers presented at the ASA Annual Meeting are typically working papers that have not yet been published in peer reviewed journals.
For men in pink-collar jobs, a tradeoff: Lower pay, more job security
2014-08-16
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Parental incarceration can be worse for a child than divorce or death of a parent
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO — With more than 2 million people behind bars, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. This mass incarceration has serious implications for not only the inmates, but their children, finds a new University of California-Irvine study. The study found significant health problems, including behavioral issues, in children of incarcerated parents and also that, for some types of health outcomes, parental incarceration can be more detrimental to a child's well-being than divorce or the death of a parent.
"We know that poor people and racial minorities ...
Peers, but not peer pressure, key to prescription drug misuse among young adults
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO — Current efforts to prevent prescription drug misuse among young adults need to consider peers — but not peer pressure — according to a Purdue University study.
"With the 18-29 age group we may be spending unnecessary effort working a peer pressure angle in prevention and intervention efforts. That does not appear to be an issue for this age group," said study co-author Brian Kelly, a professor of sociology and anthropology who studies drug use and youth cultures. "Rather, we found more subtle components of the peer context as influential. These include ...
Disconnect between parenting and certain jobs a source of stress, study finds
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO — Some working parents are carrying more psychological baggage than others — and the reason has nothing to do with demands on their time and energy.
The cause is their occupation.
According to University of Iowa researchers, parents who hold jobs viewed by society as aggressive, weak, or impersonal are likely to be more stressed out than parents whose occupations are seen in a light similar to parenting — good, strong, and caring.
"We know that one source of stress for parents is the time and energy bind," says Mark Walker, a doctoral student in sociology ...
Ethnoburbs: Segregation in suburbia
2014-08-16
White flight does not end when residents move from poor urban neighborhoods to the suburbs. An Indiana University study found that white flight from one suburban neighborhood to another occurs when white residents move away from "ethnoburbs," suburban neighborhoods that attract a growing number of middle-class minority residents.
"The sheer force of immigration and suburbanization has resulted in the unmistakable rise of middle-class yet ethnic suburban communities. However, my research shows that despite their distinct middle-class character, ethnoburbs have lost a steady ...
The notion of love can lead to greater acceptance of couples' rights
2014-08-16
SAN FRANCISCO -- An Indiana University study found that how "in love" a romantic couple appears to be is interpreted differently based on the couple's sexual orientation, affecting what formal and informal rights people think that couple deserves.
Long Doan, a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at IU Bloomington's College of Arts and Sciences, said the study was created to understand how people's attitudes differ based on sexual orientation.
"If you ask what someone thinks of a same-sex couple or what they think of a straight couple, they usually have different ...
New study takes the shine off magpie folklore
2014-08-16
Magpies are not attracted to shiny objects and don't routinely steal small trinkets such as jewellery, according to a new study.
In European culture, it is widely accepted that magpies (Pica pica) are the pilferers of the bird kingdom, unconditionally attracted to sparkly things and prone to pinching them for their nests, almost as a compulsion.
But psychologists at the Centre for Research in Animal Behaviour (CRAB) at the University of Exeter are now countering this folklore, having shown that the species is actually frightened of new and unfamiliar objects, rather ...
Bivalirudin versus heparin in patients planned for coronary stenting
2014-08-16
Boston, MA— Bivalirudin and heparin are two anticoagulant options for patients undergoing coronary stenting for ischemic heart disease. Bivalirudin, a newer anticoagulant, has been touted as being as effective as generic heparin, but with nearly half the rate of bleeding. However, several studies have hinted that, compared with heparin, bivalirudin-based regimens might not protect as well against recurrent heart attacks and might increase the risk of stents clotting off. Moreover, newer studies have questioned whether the reduction in bleeding holds up when tested on more ...
Dopamine replacement associated with impulse control increase in early Parkinson's
2014-08-15
(PHILADELPHIA) – New Penn Medicine research shows that neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety and fatigue are more common in newly diagnosed Parkinson's disease (PD) patients compared to the general population. The study also found that initiation of dopamine replacement therapy, the most common treatment for PD, was associated with increasing frequency of impulse control disorders and excessive daytime sleepiness. The new findings, the first longitudinal study to come out of the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI), are published in the August ...
Utility of sequence-related amplified polymorphism (SRAP) markers
2014-08-15
Today, many ecological and evolutionary studies depend on a wide range of molecular tools to infer phylogenetic relationships, uncover population structure within species, and track quantitative traits. Agricultural studies use these same tools to improve crop yield and increase resistance to pests and disease.
However, many of these methods—such as amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP), inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR), and random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD)—have technical limitations. These include issues of reproducibility, ambiguity in determining ...
Depression often untreated in Parkinson's disease
2014-08-15
Depression is known to be a common symptom of Parkinson's disease, but remains untreated for many patients, according to a new study by Northwestern Medicine investigators in collaboration with the National Parkinson's Foundation (NPF).
In fact, depression is the most prevalent non-motor symptom of Parkinson's, a chronic neurodegenerative disorder typically associated with movement dysfunction.
"We confirmed suspicion that depression is a very common symptom in Parkinson's disease. Nearly a quarter of the people in the study reported symptoms consistent with depression," ...