Doctoral Dissertation Research: Men and Care Work Jobs, Evidence from Two Cohorts

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

Care work, broadly defined, work that enhances the emotional and physical well-being or development of other people; care work is usually associated with "women's work" and is typically underpaid. Men's presence in care work jobs remains low despite job growth in education and health care and the decline in traditionally male-dominated manufacturing sectors. Previous research has debated whether rigid gender attitudes or material concerns such as higher wages accounts for the low numbers of men in care work jobs. Moreover, jobs have increasingly polarized; wages, working conditions, and job security have declined in care work jobs since the 1970s. This polarizing pattern of care work job growth is characterized by racial disparity, with racial minorities more likely to occupy low-paying jobs. This project has two aims: first, to empirically examine why and how men enter different kinds of care work jobs, and second, to investigate the factors contributing to the racial disparity in the paid care work sector under the context of increasing job polarization. By shedding light on the cultural versus structural debate as well as the intersecting inequalities by race and class along with men's presence in the paid care work sector, findings from this project will help develop policy suggestions about how to encourage more men to enter care work jobs while closing the racial disparity in the paid care work sector. To address whether men?s avoidance of care work jobs is motivated primarily by cultural concerns - care work jobs are typically labeled as "women's work" - or by material concerns, the first part of this project empirically tests the specific mechanisms related to gender attitudes, human capital, and labor market positions behind men's entry into various kinds of care work jobs. The project uses nationally representative, individual-level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) 1979. Event history models will examine men's transition into first care work jobs. The second part of this project explains a phenomenon that has been documented by previous research - that is, the polarization pattern of paid care work jobs has been highly racialized, with whites increasingly concentrating in high-paying and racial/ethnic minorities in low-paying care work jobs. The analysis aims to elucidate the extent to which this racialized pattern is driven by racial disparity in education and labor market experiences, and/or by racial discrimination. Using data from NLSY79 and 97, the study will show how socioeconomic determinants of men's entry into high-paying and low-paying care work jobs have changed in the "new economy" by comparing two cohorts of young men (late Baby Boomers and early Millennials) who joined the workforce under different labor market conditions. Findings from the second part will illuminate increasing racial and class inequalities behind the celebrated trend towards gender occupational integration. Since paid care work sectors are projected to continue their strong growth in the U.S., insights from this project can inform how labor market inequalities by race and class may decline or intensify in the future.