The Future of Work Is Care—Can Men Adapt? | The Professor Is In

One of the wonderful things about doing this is we
do it live, and so when I don't know things, Sorry,
I am naked in front of everyone.
I'm Megan Connors, I'm justus, and this is the professor
is in.
This week, we released an episode about the gender gap
in recent job growth numbers that's been largely driven by
an expansion of.
The healthcare sector.
And today we're going to discuss some questions and comments
from our audience. Okay, so I would say by far
kind of the topic that we had the most questions
and comments about was related to the gender wage gap
and how that may or may not be part.
Of this story.
So I guess the first thing I want to ask
you about that is does the gender wage gap have
anything to do with these current this current job growth
gap that we're seeing. Some people thought, you know, companies
might want to hire cheaper labor by hiring women, But
is that part of this story.
Let me give you two answers, because I'm an economist,
I can't even agree with myself. Look, the first is
in economics, everything's connected to everything. The second, though, is
to say that what the story we were telling was
fundamentally a story about quantities. What's happening to employment the
gender wage gap. We think about it as a story
of prices. Now, when I say that, again, economics teaches
us quantities of crisis are highly related. But in this case,
I really think it's fundamentally a story about quantities, because
it's really about where the economy is going. One of
the things that's really interesting to me from the comments, Megan,
you might have views on this is the moment you
talk about a gender gap. There's a real emotional resonance
for some of our audience. I think they're women where
you're like, hey, you're only telling half the story man,
And you're right. If we were talking about gender and
the labor market, I didn't even scratch the surface. And
so if you feel unseen by my analysis, you're probably right.
And that's the bumblings of a middle aged man. It
turns out, actually one of our country's great experts on
the gender wage gap is in my household. But it's
not me, it's my better half, Betsy Stevenson. I think
what's going on with the gender wage gap is fascinating.
It's important, but it plays out over a much longer horizon.
These are issues that have a lot to do with
things like legislation, corporate norms, and so on. We're looking
at what's happened to employment over the last fifteen months now.
Some people did try to link them.
They'd say, well, as you said, women are cheaper, firms
are under pressure, maybe they're going to hire more women.
There's a maybe to that.
One thing is firms hate paying wages all the time,
not just right now, so that effect has always been there.
Another is actually in the form of the answer we gave,
which is, it's not that we saw a shift within
a certain type of employer towards women that would be
inive of Wow, women became cheaper, women became more attractive.
Is it the structure of the whole economy changed? That
answer tells us it's about broader macro forces rather than
the gender wage gap.
Yeah, and actually you said, because that over explained the gap,
there's actually been a little bit of a shift toward
men in certain industries, which I feel like tells us
that that's probably not what's going on here.
Absolutely, and so that's actually fascinating, And it pulls up
one of my favorite comments for the week because I
read it and I just stopped and say, holy cow.
So someone wrote, oh, this is just Simpson's paradox, and
for many folks you're just like, what the hell is
he talking about? What's Bart Simpson got to do with this?
Let me explain what Simpson's paradox is. The following is
not precisely what happened, but it's approximately what happened. Approximately.
It's the case that within every industry, or within most industries,
male job growth was stronger than female job growth, proportionally
so so it actually if you were just looking within
each industry, if you sent a consult out to fifteen
different industries, they'd all report back the labor market has
become more male. But instead, what we did was macroeconomics,
and we looked at the total, and the labor market
has become overwhelmingly more female. Simpson's paradox is the possibility
that each piece of the whole could move in one
direction with the whole itself moves in the opposite direction.
And that's actually it's approximately what's happened here, which is
the shift towards traditionally female jobs was so large that,
in fact, it would have led you to expect even
more jobs to have gone to women than did. That
must mean that the within industry movement was towards men.
And so what's fun for me as an economist is
Simpson's paradox is normally taught us a statistical anomaly. Right,
if you look at small slices, you might miss the
big picture, or if you look at the big picture,
you might misunderstand what's happening in the small slices. What
we actually have here an economic reason to expect Simpson's paradox.
Let me explain the traditionally female industries grew. They grew
so much that they hired a bunch of women. Guess
what that means is left for the rest of the
economy fewer women. And so what you got was other
most industries within the industry became more male simply because
they couldn't find sheelers. And so maybe economics actually sometimes
throws up Simpson's paradoxes and everyday reality. As I said,
I think that's a great example of it. It's not
literally true that every industry became slightly more masculine, but
actually overwhelmingly most of them.
Did, including the ones that were growing I'm assuming.
Like health care, yes, yes, Okay, yes.
So, kind of staying on this wage topic, you know
a lot of these jobs, these quote unquote pink color jobs,
traditionally have been paid less compared to other jobs that
you need similar levels of education. Some of that has
to do with their history and the fact that they've
been traditionally viewed as female. Well do you think this
is part of the reason why it's been difficult to
attract men to these professions or do you think the
kind of cultural stereotypes are playing a bigger role here?
Really fascinating question. It raises so many economic issues. I
can't even stop here, Megan, this is going to be Yeah, hey, look,
there's a really interesting thing, which is when people go
to examine the gender wage gap, what do they mean
by it? Do they mean women are paid less than men? Well,
they are, But then, as you point out, women tend
to work in different occupations than men, so should we
take that into account? And some people say it's not
a gender wage gap if women are paid more than
men within every occupation, which is not true. By the way,
this is just coming back to I'm going to marry
this with Simpson's paradox. You could have women being paid
more than men in every occupation, but women being paid
less than men overall. If that were the case, it's
not the real world. I'm just giving you a teaching example.
Would you say the world is biased towards women or
against women? Now, when economists do these large regression models
where they control for stuff, and if you hate regressions
and controls, just say take account of a bunch of
other stuff. Then what you do is you say, taking
account of the different occupations women are in there paid
more than men, there's no gender wage gap. And actually
that's a fairly common claim. One here is from the right.
But this is where you have to realize there's a
very strong link from statistics to economics to ethics, which
is do you want to take account of or control
for all of these other factors. Because it could be
the reason that nursing is low paid is because it's
a low skilled occupation. I happen not to believe that.
Or it could be that historically it's regarded as female
work and we undervalue female work. What that means is
if you're saying, well, let's only look within nursing for comparisons,
you're giving up half the story. You say, oh yeah, yeah,
the fact that nurses are paid less. That you know,
women nurse are paid the same as men, there's no sexism. Yeah,
but nurses are paid less, and there's a real problem.
I can't tell you, as an economics professor whether nurses
are paid less because of sexism or because nursing is
a different occupation, And so figuring out the gender wage
gap is just horrendously difficult. There's no you can't just
call a nerd and do it, because there are these
judgment calls about should I look within nursing, should I
take account of arguably the reason nurses have paid less.
I actually, I'm really glad you explained that. I mean,
I was wondering if that's part of what you know, Like,
in order to attract more men to these fields, are
we going to need to raise the wages of these fields?
Right?
Okay, we don't get So why aren't blokes moving where
the jobs are and the jobs are in the care
economy broadly defined. One answer is, historically these are low
wage jobs. Men have had other options. Well, if we're
in a world where those other options are going away,
will the men start to move across? This, by the way,
was a huge issue in the wake of the two
thousand and eight recession, because when finance went south, first
of all finance blokes and suits. The next thing that
went south was construction blokes and hard hats. And we
had this big problem, too many big buffy blokes and
not enough. We couldn't find jobs for big buffy blokes.
And that's why some amount of the Recovery Act was
about sending people out to build roads and bridges. Now,
in a better world, you could have said, you know
what else requires those masculine traits of being reliable, turning up,
being there for people, being able to do the heavy
work when it's required. Is being a home health care aid.
And I mean all of that very seriously. If you
think about deeply what masculinity is about. First of all,
there are deep questions where they're there is a thing
called masculinity, my kids till men's silly. But men who
believe in masculinity often see themselves as providers, as reliable,
as able to do the hard work, as being there
for others. That is actually those forms of work. Now,
those same men will tell you no, no, no, that's
women's work. And so your question is a good one.
That sort of says, how much do we need an
economic shift of valuing this work versus a social shift
of valuing this work. I don't know the answer, but
I do know we need that shift. The social shift
we need, though, is not that we generically value it.
We need men to be able to see themselves as
doing it. I as a middle aged man who suffers
his own degree of testosterone poisoning.
Do think there's a lot to the social story.
And I think you see that in that you sometimes
see after something like the OA crisis, large numbers of
blue collar men in traditionally masculine jobs who are staying
unemployed rather than going to where the work is. And
so that's why part of what I hope we are
kicking off here, Megan, is something of a conversation about
how we can construct forms of masculinity to acknowledge this
form of work as being artly coherent with masculinity.
Yeah, I agree completely.
I think I think the provider and care aspect is
really interesting, right because there is a lot of talk
in our culture right now about connecting, you know, masculinity
to providing, But what is what does providing actually mean?
And I think there is a way to redefine it
a bit okay.
On a related but perhaps hopeful note, is it possible
that as these fields are in our demand for them
is increasing. Could we see that demand translate into higher
wages or is that wishful thinking?
The very simple economics of this is if what we
see is increase, so by the way yours is at
one level actually a pessimistic question.
Let me explain. So I said, wishful wise wages rise.
I think it's terrific, and the bloke says, no, I'm
in favor of women's wages.
I want to be clear for the field, for the
field if if.
These jobs remain female coded and predominantly that's the service
sector and particularly parts of the care economy, and if
they're growing, then the demand for women's labor grows, and
therefore women's wages will rise relative to men. So the
answer is yes. Let me tell you why I am
pessim why that is actually a pessimistic story. Those gains
will go to women only if these jobs remain persistently
female coded. Maybe you think that's true. Women will have
an advantage there in the jobs of the future. But
you know what I hope for is that blokes, we
pink that we figure it out and that where the
economy is growing, even men are able.
To keep up maybe at both and.
Yes, thank you, Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, So the next question is actually comes from me.
I'll be honest, I feel like I.
Anecdotal. I mean, I think other people have it.
I feel likedt Megan, you count. I'm glad you're in
the comments.
I feel like I've been hearing a lot about labor
shortages in more masculine, traditionally masculine fields like construction, like
certain skilled trades. In the education space, specifically which I
come from, there's been kind of this renewed focus on
CTE career and technical education programs, but it doesn't seem
like we're seeing that at least in this data. Has
demand for those fields been overstated or is their demand
and we're just not filling those fields because we don't
have people sufficiently prepared for them.
One of the wonderful things about doing this is we
do it live. And so when I don't know things,
sorry I am naked in front of everyone, But actually
I do know something here, which is there's one other
fact that's really critically important, which is the sharp decrease
in immigration. So if you want to think about labor
shortages in the current economy, we used to have, you know,
one percent population growth coming from immigration, and that's going
to zero. It's the largest demographic shock we've experienced in
quite sometime, largest sharpest, very much overnight. I think it
hasn't taken enough of the economic conversation. But so if
you were then going to be thinking about where are
labor shortages, why am I hearing the word labor shortages.
It's almost certainly got a lot to do with immigration.
And so that's why you hear a fair bit about
this with construction, a fair bit about it with agriculture.
And then also there are parts of the care economy
where historically these have been female immigrants.
So a lot of it happening.
It's sort of the lower paid end of the workforce.
No one is really complaining at the higher paid end
of the workforce, Like do.
You know, I'm also curious about the skilled trade, so
you know a lot of traditionally like I'm thinking welders,
and I don't know of the like I feel like
there's been talk about that as well, Like do we
have actually.
A need for that has that been overstated, like do
we know can this data tell us anything about that?
Are we missed guided and trying to steer children towards
these fields or do we actually need them as well?
These are good fields, these are important fields. They pay well,
some of them are unionized. Their good jobs, and if
that's the right job for your child, that's work with dignity,
respectability and so on.
That's true.
And at the same time, these are not obviously the
jobs of the future. So we've seen this is a
point we do make in the piece, a shift, you know,
a very strong political shift towards those traditional trade type jobs.
We want to build manufacturing and want blokes with hard hats,
blah blah blah. It's failed because making stuff is not
the future of the American economy. And so some of
those trades you're describing are about making stuff.
Okay, So we had another subscriber ask about how these
trends might change as baby boomers eventually pass on.
Right, most of them are retired at this point. Are
the healthcare jobs?
Do we have so many of them because of the
baby boomers or is this kind of expansion of the
sector here to stay.
I think it's here for a long long time.
So first of all, there's plenty of baby boomers left,
and there's going to be plenty of them left for
a long long time. That feels awfully grim to say
it that way. Lifespans are increasing enormously, says Wealth, and
so with them demand for I want to use an
expansive version of the term end of life care, so
home health care aids.
And the like.
If I got to make wave my magic wand to
make one social change in the world, it would actually
be changing how we think about older care. People work
in preschools and kindergartens and they work with kids, and
we say, aren't you great, And you're a former teacher
and you're building the future, and aren't they cute? And
tell me stories about your work day today, Megan, No
one says that about the folks who look after old people.
And when you've got older people in your life who
are struggling with health, you come to see their home
health care aids as real heroes. If there are a
way in which we could make care at that end
of the life feel is dignified and optimistic and exciting
as it is at the start, I think they would
just be wonderful for the world. Let me rewind to
your question. There's a bunch of things going on here.
So medical care is extraordinary. We're basically living an extra
year of our life every decade, and we're keeping retirement
age is roughly where they are, So the period over
which you might need help is expanding enormously.
The resources with.
Which we're hitting old age are increasing enormously, and so
those trends are going to continue.
The thing about getting wealthier.
As you get wealthier a country, we don't buy more
loaves of bread. And as we got wealthier, we all
started buying more cars. But eventually you stop buying more
cars because one or two is enough. As we get wealthier,
what are going to spend your money on? And it's
going to be a comfortable, healthy retirement. And so think
of that as a luxury good. And I understand many
build things. I'm not in the mood for luxuries right now,
but relative to human history, we are in the mood
for luxuries, and so that's where increasing spending is going
to go.
Okay, So for our last question, we had a couple
of people ask about AI and I was curious what
your thoughts are in terms of how AI might impact
these fields these jobs, Are they relatively AI proof or
not necessarily just yes, yeah.
Really interesting question.
So the natural inclination from the West would be to
say that you know a home health care aid who
moves around, who talks to you. It's very human work.
Therefore there's no role for AI. What's interesting is if
you go to Japan, which has a very large aging population,
they're actually trying to use robots. They're literally trying to
get robots that will roll old people over in bed
and things like that. Let me just give you a
weirder side. Japan has the world's best massage chairs. Now,
the thing is massage is a best given by people,
but the Japanese seem really comfortable with massages given by
robotic chairs. So maybe this is a japan store sorry
that older care is something that robots can do, but
I suspect not so at first blush, it feels.
Very AI proof.
But this is one of those things where if you've
got tens of millions of people who are older, and
a lot of their needs are going to be about
how you navigate society and paying your bills and things
like that, these are all things that are actually pretty
AI a bull. The really important thing about AI is
the language with which.
We interact with it.
Is human language, and so it doesn't require any particular facility,
so it may actually be really helpful for older care.
The other thing I just want to add, the whole
story here is about men versus women's employment, and as
of twelve hours ago, I had no idea about this.
But fortunately I had coffee with Betsy Stevenson this morning,
and she works on both AI and gender. And Betsy
tells me that it's understood in that literature that many
story feminine jobs are likely thought to.
Be at risk to AI.
That the and here she's thinking very much more about
white collar rather than blue collar. The other thing that
I'd add, more generally thinking about the role of IO
and the labor market, is we think of AI as
predominantly being about cognitive work rather than physical work. And
to the extent that eilder care is physical work or
healthcare is physical work, then you might think that these
jobs are likely to persist even when the computers run
every other part of our lives.
Yeah, I'm also I'm really curious about kind of the
relationship piece as well. I mean, I think a lot
of these I'm thinking more about education in this respect,
but we're actually starting to see a bit of a
turn against tech because of the understanding that, you know,
the person of person relationship is a key part of
what actually helps people learn, particularly people that don't want
to learn.
So I'll be curious.
I mean, it's something I'm going to keep my eye on.
I'm curious how healthcare is going to navigate that same.
Education piece. Let's get into it now.
I want to explain to our audience that Meghan's a
former teacher and I teach I mean I teach college kids.
She to it younger, and you and I have quite
different views. And you're right to say there's something all
the studies tell us, and your experience tells you there's
something very magical about a teacher sitting down with a student.
That's right. Now, let me take you into my classroom.
I teach economics one a one with five hundred students,
and the other thing all the studies teach us is
that personalization is intensely helpful. Now, the thing is, I
literally cannot personalize with five hundred students. But if I
set you talking to an AI tutor that has asked you,
what sports do you like, how do you prefer to learn,
what language do you want to learn in do you
want to you know, what are your career ambitions? And
then it frames each economic makes listen, yeah, in that
personalized way.
I think, I mean, I think a big part of
our different perspectives comes from.
The K twelve verse higher education.
One of the best lessons I learned before becoming a
teacher is that K twelve teachers are one of the
few jobs where our clients are entirely unwilling.
It's like that in parole officers, right, like you know.
By nature, and like that that framed everything I did,
right and by nature.
You know, by the time you get to higher ed,
to some.
Degree, obviously there's not everyone is like super gung ho,
but to some degree the student has chosen to be there.
And so I do.
I do see that, and I think, but I think
the you know, half my job was convincing a child
that they needed to do their work. It wasn't even
explaining it, it was just persuasion.
You have never caught MBA students.
That's fair, Okay, that's.
My audience, right, now, who are MBA students. I just
want to be clear.
I want you to understand the point, because in fact,
you're recognize it With undergraduates. I walk into the front
of a room and they're like, he's the teacher. I'm
going to listen. Many of my MBA students believed that
old expression those who can do those who can't teach,
and so they were rarely convinced that they should listen
to the second half of any sentence that I began.
So maybe you and I have had some similarities in
our teaching experiences.
That's fair. That's fair. You just revert again by the
time you get to grad school.
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