![Special ed teacher](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Special_ed_teacher.jpg)
A pink-collar worker is someone working in the care-oriented career field or in fields historically considered to be
women's work
Women's work is often assumed to be solely the realm of women, and it is associated with specific stereotypical jobs that have been associated with the feminine sex throughout history. It is most commonly used in reference to the unpaid labor that ...
. This may include jobs in the
beauty industry
The cosmetic industry describes the industry that manufactures and distributes cosmetic products. These include colour cosmetics, like foundation and mascara, skincare such as moisturisers and cleansers, haircare such as shampoos, conditioners a ...
,
nursing
Nursing is a profession within the health care sector focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life. Nurses may be differentiated from other health ...
,
social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
,
teaching
Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the context of an educational institution. Teaching is closely re ...
,
secretarial work,
upholstery
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something.
''Upholstery'' comes from the Middle English word ...
, or
child care
Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(r ...
.
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
A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...
jobs.
Women's work, and defining women to particular fields within the workplace, began to rise in the 1940s concurrently with
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
Etymology
The term "pink-collar" was popularized in the late 1970s by writer and social critic Louise Kapp Howe to denote women working as nurses, secretaries, and elementary school teachers. Its origins, however, go back to the early 1970s, when the
Equal Rights Amendment
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution designed to guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Proponents assert it would end legal distinctions between men and ...
(ERA) was placed before the states for ratification. At that time, the term was used to denote secretarial staff as well as non-professional office staff, all of which were largely made up of women. These positions were not white-collar jobs, but neither were they blue-collar manual labor. Hence, the creation of the term "pink-collar," which indicated it was not white-collar, was nonetheless an office job and one that was overwhelmingly filled by women.
Occupations
Pink-collar occupations tend to be personal-service-oriented workers working in retail, nursing, and
teaching
Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the context of an educational institution. Teaching is closely re ...
(depending on the level), are part of the
service sector
The tertiary sector of the economy, generally known as the service sector, is the third of the three economic sectors in the three-sector model (also known as the economic cycle). The others are the primary sector (raw materials) and the second ...
, and are among the most common occupations in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. The
Bureau of Labor Statistics
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of t ...
estimates that, as of May 2008, there were over 2.2 million persons employed as servers in the United States.
Furthermore, the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
's 2011 World Health Statistics Report states that there are 19.3 million nurses in the world today.
In the United States, women constitute 92.1% of the registered nurses that are currently employed.
According to the 2016 United States Census analyzed in Barnes, et al.’s research paper, more than 95% of the construction workforce is male.
Due to the low population of women outside of the childcare or social workforce, state governments are miscalculating economic budgets by not accounting for most female pink-collar workers.
Generally, less government funding is allocated to professions and work environments that traditionally employ and retain a greater percentage of women, for example, education and social work. From the research conducted by Tiffany Barnes, Victoria Beall, and Mirya Holman, discrepancies for government representation of pink-collar jobs could primarily be due to legislatures and government employees having the perspective for only white-collar jobs and most people making budgetary decisions are men.
A white collar-job is typically administrative.
As explained in Buzzanell et al.’s research article, maternity leave is the time off from work a mother takes after having a child, either through childbirth or adoption.
In 2010, the
International Labour Office
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and ol ...
explained that
maternity leave
Parental leave, or family leave, is an employee benefit available in almost all countries. The term "parental leave" may include maternity, Paternity (law), paternity, and adoption leave; or may be used distinctively from "maternity leave" and ...
is usually compensated by the employer's company, but several countries do not follow that mandate, including the United States.
Results from “Standpoints of Maternity Leave: Discourses of Temporality and Ability” state that many new mothers employed in pink-collar work have keyed disability or sick leave instead of time off for maternity leave.
Pink-collar occupations include:
Background (United States)
Historically, women were responsible for the running of a household. Their financial security was often dependent upon a male patriarch. Widowed or divorced women struggled to support themselves and their children.
Western women began to develop more opportunities when they moved into the paid workplace, formerly of the male domain. In the mid 19th and early 20th century women aimed to be treated as equals to their male counterparts, notably in the
Seneca Falls Convention
The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women's rights convention. It advertised itself as "a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman".Wellman, 2004, p. 189 Held in the Wesleyan Methodist Church ...
. In 1920 American women legally gained the
right to vote
Suffrage, political franchise, or simply franchise, is the right to vote in public, political elections and referendums (although the term is sometimes used for any right to vote). In some languages, and occasionally in English, the right to v ...
, marking a turning point for the American
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
movement; yet race and class remained as
impediments to voting for some women.
At the turn of the 19th century into the 20th, large numbers of single women in the United States traveled to large cities such as New York where they found work in factories and
sweatshop
A sweatshop or sweat factory is a crowded workplace with very poor, socially unacceptable or illegal working conditions. Some illegal working conditions include poor ventilation, little to no breaks, inadequate work space, insufficient lighting, o ...
s, working for low pay operating sewing machines, sorting feathers, rolling tobacco, and other similar menial tasks.
In these factories, workers frequently breathed dangerous fumes and worked with flammable materials.
[Humowitz Weissman 1978, p. 239] In order for factories to save money, women were required to clean and adjust the machines while they were running, which resulted in accidents where women lost their fingers or hands.
Many women who worked in the factories earned meager wages for working long hours in unsafe conditions and as a result lived in poverty.
Throughout the 20th century, women such as
Emily Balch
Emily Greene Balch (January 8, 1867 – January 9, 1961) was an American economics, economist, sociologist and Pacifism, pacifist. Balch combined an academic career at Wellesley College with a long-standing interest in social issues such as pov ...
,
Jane Addams
Laura Jane Addams (September 6, 1860 May 21, 1935) was an American settlement activist, reformer, social worker, sociologist, public administrator, and author. She was an important leader in the history of social work and women's suffrage ...
, and
Lillian Wald
Lillian D. Wald (March 10, 1867 – September 1, 1940) was an American nurse, humanitarian and author. She was known for contributions to human rights and was the founder of American community nursing. She founded the Henry Street Settlement in N ...
were advocates for evolving the roles of women in America.
[Gourley 2008, p. 99.] These women created
settlement house
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...
s and launched missions in overcrowded squalid immigrant neighborhoods to offer social services to women and children.
In addition, women gradually became more involved with church activities and came to take on more leadership roles in various religious societies. The women who joined these societies worked with their members, some of whom were full-time teachers, nurses,
missionaries
A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...
, and social workers to accomplish their leadership tasks.
The
Association for the Sociology of Religion
The Association for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) is an academic association with more than 700 members worldwide. It publishes a journal, '' Sociology of Religion'', and holds meetings at the same venues and times as the American Sociological A ...
was the first to elect a woman president in 1938.
Invention of the typewriter
Typically, clerk positions were filled by young men who used the position as an
apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners ...
and opportunity to learn basic office functions before moving on to management positions. In the 1860s and 1870s, widespread use of the
typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
made women appear better suited for clerk positions. With their smaller fingers, women were perceived to be better able to operate the new machines. By 1885, new methods of note-taking and the expanding scope of businesses led office-clerk positions to be in high demand. Having a
secretary
A secretary, administrative professional, administrative assistant, executive assistant, administrative officer, administrative support specialist, clerk, military assistant, management assistant, office secretary, or personal assistant is a w ...
became a status symbol, and these new types of positions were relatively well paid.
World War I and II
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
sparked a demand for "pink-collar jobs" as the military needed personnel to type letters, answer phones, and perform other secretarial tasks. One thousand women worked for the U.S. Navy as
stenographers, clerks, and telephone operators.
In addition,
Military nurse
Most professional militaries employ specialised military nurses. They are often organised as a distinct nursing corps. Florence Nightingale formed the first nucleus of a recognised Nursing Service for the British Army during the Crimean War in 1854 ...
s, an already
"feminized" and accepted profession for women, expanded during wartime. In 1917,
Louisa Lee Schuyler opened the
Bellevue Hospital School of Nursing
The Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing (HBSON) is the nursing school of Hunter College, a public university that is a constituent organization of the City University of New York (CUNY). It is located on the Brookdale Campus, at East 25th Street an ...
, which was the first to train women as professional nurses. After completing training, female nurses worked in hospitals or more predominantly in field tents.
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
marked the emergence of large numbers of women working domestically in industrial jobs to assist in the war effort as directed under the
War Manpower Commission
The War Manpower Commission was a World War II agency of the United States Government charged with planning to balance the labor needs of agriculture, industry and the armed forces.
History
The Commission was created by President Franklin D. R ...
which recruited women to fill war manufacturing jobs.
Notably,
American women in World War II
American women in World War II became involved in many tasks they rarely had before; as the war involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale, the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women in ...
joined the armed services and were stationed domestically and abroad through participation in non-combat military roles and as medical personnel. One thousand female pilots joined the
Women Airforce Service Pilots
The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) (also Women's Army Service Pilots or Women's Auxiliary Service Pilots) was a civilian women pilots' organization, whose members were United States federal civil service employees. Members of WASP became t ...
, one hundred and forty thousand women joined the
Women's Army Corps
The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was the women's branch of the United States Army. It was created as an Auxiliaries, auxiliary unit, the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on 15 May 1942 and converted to an active duty status in the Army of the U ...
and one hundred thousand women joined the
U.S. Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
as nurses through
WAVES
Waves most often refers to:
*Waves, oscillations accompanied by a transfer of energy that travel through space or mass.
* Wind waves, surface waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water.
Waves may also refer to:
Music
* Waves (ban ...
in addition to administrative staff.
20th-century female working world (United States)
![Pink 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Pink_2.JPG)
A typical job sought by working women in the early 20th century was a
telephone operator or
Hello Girl. The Hello Girls began as women who operated on
telephone switchboard
A telephone switchboard was a device used to connect circuits of telephones to establish telephone calls between users or other switchboards, throughout the 20th century. The switchboard was an essential component of a manual telephone exchange, ...
s during
WWI
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
by answering telephones and talking to impatient callers in a calming tone. The workers would sit on stools facing a wall with hundreds of outlets and tiny blinking lights. They had to work quickly when a light flashed by plugging the cord into the proper outlet. Despite the difficult work, many women wanted this job because it paid five dollars a week and provided a rest lounge for the employees to take a break.
Female secretaries were also popular. They were instructed to be efficient, tough, and hardworking while also appearing soft, accommodating, and subservient.
Women were expected to be the protector and partner to their boss behind closed doors and a helpmate in public. These women were encouraged to go to charm schools and express their personality through fashion instead of furthering their education.
Social work
Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social work ...
became a female-dominated profession in the 1930s, emphasizing a group professional identity and the casework method.
[Ware 1982, p. 74] Social workers gave crucial expertise for the expansion of federal, state and local government, as well as services to meet the needs of the Depression.
Teachers in primary and secondary schools remained female, although as the war progressed, women began to move on to better employment and higher salaries.
[Ware 1982, p. 102] In 1940, teaching positions paid less than $1,500 a year and fell to $800 in rural areas.
Women scientists found it hard to gain appointments at universities. Women scientists were forced to take positions in high schools, state or women's colleges, governmental agencies and alternative institutions such as libraries or museums.
Women who took jobs at such places often did clerical duties and though some held professional positions, these boundaries were blurred.
Some found work as
human computer
The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613), meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available. Ala ...
s.
Mostly women were hired as librarians, who had been professionalized and feminized from the late 19th century. In 1920, women accounted for 88% of librarians in the United States.
Two-thirds of the
American Geographical Society
The American Geographical Society (AGS) is an organization of professional geographers, founded in 1851 in New York City. Most fellows of the society are Americans, but among them have always been a significant number of fellows from around the ...
(AGS)'s employees were women, who served as librarians, editorial personnel in the publishing programs, secretaries, research editors, copy editors, proofreaders, research assistants and sales staff. These women came with credentials from well-known colleges and universities and many were overqualified for their positions, but later were promoted to more prestigious positions.
Although female employees did not receive equal pay, they did get sabbaticals to attend university and to travel for their professions at the cost of the AGS.
Those women working managerial and library or museums positions made an impact on women in the work force, but still encountered discrimination when they tried to advance.
In the 1940s, clerical work expanded to occupy the largest number of women employees, this field diversified as it moved into commercial service. The average worker in the 1940s was over 35 years old, married, and needed to work to keep their families afloat.
During the 1950s, women were taught that marriage and domesticity were more important than a career. Most women followed this path because of the uncertainty of the post-war years. Suburban housewives were encouraged to have hobbies like bread making and sewing. The 1950s housewife was in conflict between being "just a housewife" because their upbringing taught them competition and achievement. Many women had furthered their education deriving a sense of self-worth.
As mentioned in the research article by Patrice Buzzanell, Robyn Remke, Rebecca Meisenbach, Meina Liu, Venessa Bowers, and Cindy Conn, as of 2016, pink-collar jobs are quickly growing in demand by both men and women.
Professions within pink-collar jobs are more likely to be consistent with job security and the need for employment, but salary and advancements seem to be much more slow-growing factors.
Pay
A single woman working in a factory in the early 20th century earned less than $8 a week, which is equivalent to roughly less that $98 dollars a week today. If the woman was absent or was late, employers penalized them by docking their pay.
[Gourley 2008, p. 105] These women would live in boarding houses costing $1.50 a week, waking at 5:30 a.m. to start their ten-hour work day. When women entered the paid workforce in the 1920s they were paid less than men because employers thought the women's jobs were temporary. Employers also paid women less than men because they believed in the "Pin Money Theory", which said that women's earnings were secondary to that of their male counterparts. Married working women experienced lopsided stress and overload because they were still responsible for the majority of the housework and taking care of the children. This left women isolated and subjected them to their husband's control.
[Silver, Hilary]
"Housework and Domestic Work,"
''Sociological Forum'' 182 no.2 (1993).
In the early 1900s women's pay was one to three dollars a week and much of that went to living expenses. In the 1900s female tobacco strippers earned five dollars a week, half of what their male coworkers made and
seamstress
A dressmaker, also known as a seamstress, is a person who makes custom clothing for women, such as dresses, blouses, and evening gowns. Dressmakers were historically known as mantua-makers, and are also known as a modiste or fabrician.
Nota ...
es made six to seven dollars a week compared to a cutter's salary of $16.
[Woloch 1984, p. 27] This differed from women working in factories in the 1900s as they were paid by the piece, not receiving a fixed weekly wage.
[Humowitz Weissman 1978, pp. 236–237] Those that were pinching pennies pushed themselves to produce more product so that they earned more money.
Women who earned enough to live on found it impossible to keep their salary rate from being reduced because bosses often made "mistakes" in computing a worker's piece rate.
[Humowitz Weissman 1978, p. 240] As well as this, women who received this kind of treatment did not disagree for fear of losing their jobs. Employers would frequently deduct pay for work they deemed imperfect and for simply trying to lighten the mood by laughing or talking while they worked.
In the 1937 a woman's average yearly salary was $525 compared to a man's salary of $1,027.
In the 1940s two-thirds of the women who were in the labor force suffered a decrease in earnings; the average weekly paychecks fell from $50 to $37.
This gap in wage stayed consistent, as women in 1991 only earned seventy percent of what men earned regardless of their education.
Later on in the 1970s and 1980s as women began to fight for equality, they fought against discrimination in jobs where women worked and the educational institutions that would lead to those jobs.
In 1973 the average salaries for women were 57% compared to those of men, but this
gender earnings gap
The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. There are two distinct numbers regarding the pay gap: non-adjusted ...
was especially noticeable in pink-collar jobs where the largest number of women were employed. Women were given routine, less responsible jobs available and often with a lower pay than men. These jobs were monotonous and mechanical often with assembly-line procedures.
Education
Women entering the workforce had difficulty finding a satisfactory job without references or an education. However, opportunities for
higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
expanded as women were admitted to all-male schools like the
United States service academies
The United States service academies, also known as the United States military academies, are United States federal academies, federal academies for the undergraduate education and training of commissioned officers for the United States Armed Fo ...
and
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
strongholds. Education became a way for society to shape women into its ideal housewife. In the 1950s, authorities and educators encouraged college because they found new value in vocational training for domesticity. College prepared women for future roles because while men and women were taught together, they were groomed for different paths after they graduated. Education started out as a way to teach women how to be a good wife, but education also allowed women to broaden their minds.
Being educated was an expectation for women entering the paying workforce, despite the fact that their male equivalents did not need a high school diploma. While in college, a woman would experience extracurricular activities, such as a sorority, that offered a separate space for the woman to practice types of social service work that was expected from her.
[Woloch 1984, p. 404]
However, not all of a woman's education was done in the classroom. Women were also educated through their peers through "dating". Men and women no longer had to be supervised when alone together. Dating allowed men and women to practice the paired activities that would later become a way of life.
New women's organizations sprouted up working to reform and protect women in the workplace. The largest and most prestigious of these organizations was the
General Federation of Women's Clubs
The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC), founded in 1890 during the Progressive Movement, is a federation of over 3,000 women's clubs in the United States which promote civic improvements through volunteer service. Many of its activities ...
(GFWC), whose members were conservative middle-class housewives. The
International Ladies Garment Workers Union
The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), whose members were employed in the Clothing#Gender differentiation, women's clothing industry, was once one of the largest trade union, labor unions in the United States, one of the firs ...
(ILGWU) was formed after women shirtwaist makers went on strike in New York City in 1909. It started as a small walkout, with a handful of members from one shop and grew to a force of ten of thousands, changing the course of the labor movement forever. In 1910 women allied themselves with the
Progressive Party Progressive Party may refer to:
Active parties
* Progressive Party, Brazil
* Progressive Party (Chile)
* Progressive Party of Working People, Cyprus
* Dominica Progressive Party
* Progressive Party (Iceland)
* Progressive Party (Sardinia), Ita ...
who sought to reform social issues.
Another organization that grew out of women in the workforce, was the
Women's Bureau
The United States Women's Bureau (WB) is an agency of the United States government within the United States Department of Labor. The Women's Bureau works to create parity for women in the labor force by conducting research and policy analysis, to ...
of the
Department of Labor
The Ministry of Labour ('' UK''), or Labor ('' US''), also known as the Department of Labour, or Labor, is a government department responsible for setting labour standards, labour dispute mechanisms, employment, workforce participation, training, a ...
. The Women's Bureau regulated conditions for women employees. As female labor became a crucial part of the economy, efforts by the Women's Bureau increased. The Bureau pushed for employers to take advantage of "women-power" and persuaded women to enter the employment market.
In 1913 the ILGWU signed the well-known "protocol in the Dress and Waist Industry" which was the first contract between labor and management settled by outside negotiators. The contract formalized the trade's division of labor by gender.
Another win for women came in 1921 when congress passed the
Sheppard–Towner Act
The Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and Infancy Act, more commonly known as the Sheppard–Towner Act, was a 1921 U.S. Act of Congress that provided federal funding for maternity and childcare. It was sponsored by Senator Morris ...
, a welfare measure intended to reduce infant and maternal mortality; it was the first federally funded healthcare act. The act provided federal funds to establish health centers for prenatal and child care. Expectant mothers and children could receive health checkups and health advice.
In 1963 the
Equal Pay Act was passed making it the first federal law against sex discrimination, equal pay for equal work (at least removed explicit base pay discrepancies based on sex), and had employers allow both men and women applicants to open positions if they qualified from the start.
Unions also became a major outlet for women to fight against the unfair treatment they experienced. Women who joined these types of unions stayed before and after work to talk about the benefits of the union, collect dues, obtain charters, and form bargaining committees.
The
National Recovery Administration
The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate "cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governmen ...
(NRA) was approved in May 1933. The NRA negotiated codes designed to rekindle production. It raised wages, shortened workers' hours, and increased employment for the first time maximizing hour and minimizing wage provisions benefiting female workers. The NRA had its flaws however, it only covered half of the women in the workforce particularly manufacturing and trade. The NRA regulated working conditions only for women with a job and did not offer any relief for the two million unemployed women who desperately needed it.
The 1930s proved successful for women in the workplace thanks to federal relief programs and the growth of unions. For the first time women were not completely dependent on themselves, in 1933 the federal government expanded in its responsibility to female workers. In 1938 the
Fair Labor Standards Act grew out of several successful strikes. Two million women joined the workforce during the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
despite negative public opinion.
21st-century female working world (United Kingdom)
Today, the economy in the United Kingdom still shows a prominent divide in a workforce with many occupations still labeled as “pink-collar”.
28% of women worked jobs labeled under “pink-collar” in
Rotherham
Rotherham () is a large minster and market town in South Yorkshire, England. The town takes its name from the River Rother which then merges with the River Don. The River Don then flows through the town centre. It is the main settlement of ...
, a town in
northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
. This study was conducted in 2010.
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.
Studies show that white-collar workers are less likely to face health disparities.
Pink ghetto
"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
A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
, thus perpetuating the "
glass ceiling
A glass ceiling is a metaphor usually applied to women, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.Federal Glass Ceiling Commission''Solid Investments: Making Full ...
". 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.
Pink or velvet ghetto in the field of public relations
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.
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.
Male integration
Scholars such as
Judy Wajcman
Judy Wajcman, is the Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is the Principal Investigator of the Women in Data Science and AI project at The Alan Turing Institute. She is also a Visi ...
argue that technology has long been monopolized by men and is a great source of their power historically. 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. Judy Wajman maintains that skills involving machines and strength are associated with masculinity.
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.
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.
Men in pink-collar jobs
Steele's research concludes that ongoing hostility will result in lower workplace performance and employment retention of men in traditional pink-collar occupations.
Although men in a woman-dominated professional environment face
stereotyping
In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
, they are still likely to receive higher praise, a higher salary, more opportunities, and more promotions.
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.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics determined that less than 20% of elementary school teachers were men.
See also
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Blue-collar worker
A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...
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Designation of workers by collar color
Collar color is a set of terms denoting groups of working individuals based on the colors of their collars worn at work. These can commonly reflect one's occupation within a broad class, or sometimes gender; at least in the late 20th and 21st cent ...
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Office lady
An office lady ( ja, オフィスレディー, Ofisuredī), often abbreviated OL (, ), is a female office worker in Japan who performs generally pink-collar
A pink-collar worker is someone working in the care-oriented career field or in field ...
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White-collar worker
A white-collar worker is a person who performs professional, desk, managerial, or administrative work. White-collar work may be performed in an office or other administrative setting. White-collar workers include job paths related to government, ...
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Women's work
Women's work is often assumed to be solely the realm of women, and it is associated with specific stereotypical jobs that have been associated with the feminine sex throughout history. It is most commonly used in reference to the unpaid labor that ...
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Glass escalator
References
Bibliography
* Gourley, Catherine (2008). ''Gibson Girls and Suffragists: Perceptions of Women from 1900 to 1918'' (Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books)
* Humowitz, Carol; Weissman, Michelle (1978). ''A History of Women in America'' (New York: Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith)
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External links
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition9to5, National Association of Working Women
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pink-collar worker
1970s neologisms
Office work
Social classes
Employment classifications
Working class
Feminist economics
Feminist terminology