The Gender And Degree Occupation Divide For Young Workers
Bruno V. Manno -- Contributor?? ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????August 28, 2024
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Labor Day 2024 Reflections On How A New High School Movement Can Build A Pathway Forward
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Ideas about men’s work and women’s work and whether an individual has or does not have a college degree contribute to?occupational segregation?for young workers in the labor market. But this segregation has decreased since 2000, especially as women without college degrees increased their employment in some occupations.
This information is from several Pew Research Center reports on men and women civilian workers between 25 and 34 years old with and without a college degree. It draws on Pew’s?analysis?of Census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data including a special 2023?report?surveying about 57,000 households.
As we celebrate Labor Day 2024, here are 4 important trends from this Pew research that show where opportunity is lacking and where new occupational opportunities may exist for men and women who have or do not have college degrees.
1) Among college graduates, men and women work some of the same jobs across the largest occupations.?Of the ten largest occupations among 25 to 34-year-olds with a college degree, 4 of the categories are the same for both men and women. Using a segregation index going from zero (total equality in the percentage of men and women working in the same job) to 100 (complete job segregation by gender), that index across all occupations in 2023 was significantly lower for young workers with a college degree (41) than among those without a degree (55).
But differences in occupations for the college-educated remain. For example, the largest number of college-educated young women work as registered nurses, an occupation not in the top 10 for college-educated young men. And large numbers of college-educated men work as computer scientists or systems analysts/web developers—fields where women are scarce.
2) Men and women without college degrees mostly hold different jobs across the largest occupations.?There is much less professional overlap among young men and women without a college degree. Young women without a degree are concentrated in a few occupations like customer service representatives and nursing and home health aides. On the other hand, the top three occupations for young men without a degree are driver/sales workers and truck drivers, construction laborers, and freight and material movers.
Only two of the 10 largest occupations for young men and women without a degree are held in common: retail salespersons and first-line supervisors of sales workers. Otherwise, the largest occupations of noncollege young men and women are different. Moreover, workers can be in the same workplace but do different tasks. For example, at a restaurant, young women without a degree are more likely to be waitresses while young men without a degree are more likely to be chefs or cooks.
3) Occupational segregation has changed over time.?Occupational segregation has?declined?since 1970, especially for college-educated women. But since 2000, the decline has been more pronounced for young women without a college degree. This decline partly reflects their growing presence in specific occupations. For example, in comparing 2023 to 2000, women accounted for 68% of young managers without a degree in marketing, advertising, and public relations, up from 22%; 69% of bakers, up from 16%; and 75% of insurance sales agents, up from 51%.
4) Labor force?participation?for those without degrees has generally declined for men and risen for women.?The share of young men who were in the labor force either working or looking for work with some college or with only a high school diploma dropped steadily between 1970 and 2023. In 1970, 96% of young men with some college education were in the labor force. Today, the share is 89%. In 1970, almost all young men with a high school diploma (98%) were in the labor force. Today that share is around 87%.
The labor force participation of young women without a college degree increased from 1970 to the early 1990s. By 2000, about three-quarters of young women with a high school diploma and 79% of those with some college education were in the labor force. That share generally fell during the 2001 recession and the Great Recession of 2008, with a sharp decline for young women with a high school diploma. Since around 2014, labor force participation for both groups of young women increased. As of 2023, 69% of young women with a high school education were in the labor force, as were 78% of young women with some college education.
The decline in male workforce participation is a matter of serious concern, as it correlates with increased rates of substance abuse, addiction, and crime. It also might lead some to conclude wrongly that the labor market is a zero-sum game, with women’s advancement coming at the cost of men’s success.
These four trends suggest that—for all the encouraging gains of the past few decades towards a more occupationally integrated workforce—there remains much to be done to reduce occupational segregation and increase labor force participation among all types of workers between 25 and 34 years old. To maximize opportunity and economic well-being for all workers, we must tackle the challenge, especially in the nation’s K-12 high schools, where crucial advances in workforce preparedness can be made.
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A New High School Movement
We can look for current inspiration to the start of the 20th?century when America faced a new set of workforce challenges. From 1910 to 1940, a grassroots effort commonly described as the high school movement led to what Harvard economists?Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz?call a “spectacular educational transformation” in America.
This occurred in response to the soaring demand for a supply of educated workers to staff new white-collar jobs that were created by rapid urbanization and advanced industrialization. The movement raised enrollment of 18-year-olds from 19% to 71%, and graduation rates from 9% to more than 50%. It lifted the U.S. to the forefront of educational attainment in the world.
Today, the demand for a new kind of educated worker has prompted community-fueled innovations in how high schools prepare young people for careers and continuing education dubbed career pathways programs. These approaches integrate schools and students with employers and work, creating a new form of social capital for young people by initiating them into relationships that expand their community networks and lifetime access to opportunity.
This new high school movement exemplifies what?Ryan Craig, in?A New U,?calls “faster and cheaper” pathways to 21st-century jobs and careers. It includes apprenticeships and internships; career and technical education; dual enrollment in high school and post-secondary institutions; job placement and training; career academies; boot camps for acquiring discrete knowledge or skills; staffing and placement services; and new approaches to paying for these programs.
It exemplifies what?Robert Bellah?described as a distinctively American understanding of politics where local civic engagement supports collective action for the common good.
The new high school movement also fosters?opportunity pluralism, promoting alternatives to the “bachelor’s degree or bust” mindset that characterizes so much of education today.
A Framework for Civic Success
How should we advance this new high school movement? The path forward has four program elements that I believe are found in the most successful programs:
1) Award credentials that pay.?Effective programs have a sequenced academic curriculum, requirements aligned with labor-market needs, and a timeline that guides participants through the program. Young people leave the program with training and a recognized career credential that provides them with a decent income.
2) Create a civic compact with multiple participants. Written community agreements—a civic compact—describe roles and responsibilities and include a program budget. The program partners—schools, other educational and community institutions, government agencies, etc.—have a management and governance structure with access to influential individuals needed for program success. Policymakers have created a supporting policy and implementation framework.
3) Include career exposure with advisers and work experience with mentors.?Programs can begin as early as middle school with activities like speakers and field trips. High school involves work placement, including mentorships, internships, and actual work, with this work-based learning integrated with classroom instruction.
4) Engage employers, trade associations, and other community organizations.?Employer participation is essential to program success, as are trade associations which help define program standards, skills, and competencies that participants need for a certificate and employment. Other local organizations can include community foundations, community colleges, chambers of commerce, private industry councils, the Salvation Army, and the United Way.
The individual learning and networking central to these programs provide young people with the knowledge, skills, and connections—social capital—needed to pursue opportunity. This approach to opportunity is best described as opportunity pluralism since individuals are offered many different pathways to work and career through education, training, and credentialing. They characterize collective civic action for creating a new high school movement of career pathways programs.
These programs also help young people develop an occupational identity and vocational self. Developing oneself in an occupation as a worker within the broader vocational sense of one’s abilities, personality, and values is an important foundation for adult success and a lifetime of opportunity.
It may be that some gender segregation will persist, even in a perfect workforce. But the decline in workforce participation must be reversed, and men and women of all levels of educational attainment must see paths forward towards opportunity and economic wellbeing.
This Labor Day let’s resolve to make that opportunity pluralism possible for all.
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Bruno V. Manno is a senior advisor at the Progressive Policy Institute and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for Policy.