Men move into women's jobs, even though there are no high-paying women's jobs

The future of pink collar work?

Men are increasingly moving into jobs traditionally dominated by women, the New York Times' Shaila Dewan and Robert Gebeloff report, with a third of job growth among men coming in occupations that are 70 percent female, and the trend appearing in men of all races and ages, as, during the recession, the "growth rate slowed for male-dominated and mixed jobs, but ticked up slightly for those dominated by women." That growth meant women's jobs were more available, and some number of men were willing to make the switch'despite the fact that, when the Times divided women's jobs into pay categories:

We divided 'women's' jobs into low- and middle-wage jobs, as a stand-in for training. (We defined middle-wage jobs as those that pay $30,000 to $60,000 a year. There are no high-paying occupations among those that are dominated by women.)

That's a startling statement, isn't it? "There are no high-paying occupations among those that are dominated by women." After however many waves of feminism and women going to college, entering the workforce, all the advances of recent decades, and there is still not one female-dominated occupation that ranks as high-paying.

Then add in that these occupations are nonetheless becoming more popular among men. Why? Individual men will have their own reasons, but broad economic trends explain a lot:

[F]inancial security usually requires a steady full-time job with benefits, something that has become harder to find, particularly for men and for those without a college degree.

It's a pretty clear statement of how broken the American middle-class jobs economy is: The erosion of growth and stability among traditionally male-dominated professions suddenly makes the relative stability of even comparatively low-paying female-dominated professions seem appealing to men.