Future jobs favor women

Research finds fields traditionally dominated by women will expand in coming decades.

Many fields that are traditionally dominated by women are set to expand in coming decades, while many jobs currently dominated by men are not. That’s the conclusion of new research by Jed Kolko, an economist at job search site Indeed, which shows that less-educated men may especially face challenges in the job market of the future.

Jobs in the United States are still strongly divided by gender.

A little more than one-third of men and a little less than one-third of women work in fields that are at least 80 percent staffed by their gender, according to U.S. Census data analyzed by Kolko.

In recent decades, fields that are dominated by men and by women have not fared equally. Many men have fallen out of work as increasing mechanization has allowed the U.S. to produce more agricultural and manufacturing goods than ever with fewer people than before.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has shifted more to service-sector jobs that are resilient to automation and tend to be more dominated by women — like health care, one of the sectors that is forecast to grow most in coming decades.

Jobs that are dominated by women are projected to grow nearly twice as fast as jobs that are dominated by men, Kolko says, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This dynamic is especially hurting lesseducated men. As Kolko points out, the least-educated men in the United States tend to work in the most male-dominated jobs, with about half of all men with a high school degree or less working in fields that are at least 80 percent male.

In contrast, only slightly more than 10 percent of men with a graduate or professional degree work in fields that are 80 percent male.

MELINA MARA/WASHINGTON POST Jobs traditionally dominated by women are expected to grow, while some heavily male careers are seen shrinking.