While discussions around discrimination often, and rightly, focus on groups with a long history of poor treatment in the workplace, research from the University of Oslo highlights that men can suffer from discrimination in the workplace too, especially when they’re applying for roles in female-dominated occupations.

The study, which explored the labor landscape in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., and the U.S., found that while women do still suffer more discrimination across the board in each of these countries, both in terms of their prevalence in senior positions and their income,  they nonetheless found that men were up to 9% less likely to proceed with an application than women in female-dominated roles.

“If men applied for typical ‘female’ jobs, they were significantly less likely to be invited for an interview or asked to provide further information about themselves,” the researchers explain.  “If male-dominated occupations related to the industrial society keep vanishing, and gender-neutral occupations are growing in size, then we would expect gender stereotypes to become less important over time.”

Diverse applicants

This matters because across the developed world, sectors that have been historically female-dominated, such as education and healthcare, have been growing considerably, and are predicted to continue growing apace in the years ahead.  Despite the growth in these sectors, the share of men working in them hasn’t budged since the 1970s, despite a considerable decline in the share of employment from manufacturing and even in overall participation of men in the labor force.

A paper from the University of Bocconi highlights that manufacturing’s share of employment in the United State fell from 29.7% in 1968 to just 12.7% in 2008.  What’s more in the same period, labor force participation fell from 80% to just 70%.

Given the growth in employment in more female-dominated sectors, the author wanted to explore why men were not moving to where the jobs were.  They conducted a large-scale field experiment via a UK-wide recruitment scheme for social workers.  This allowed them to observe not only who was applying but who was accepted and how successful applicants performed on the job.

Gender share

The experiment was designed in such a way as to allow for an examination of the perceived gender share for each role and the expected returns on the ability of the candidate.  With the former, applicants were shown a photo of a current worker, with this person sometimes male and sometimes female.  Applicants were also given information on the past performance of workers in the role.

The results showed that when men expected their returns to be higher, approximately 15% more applications were received by men.  What’s more, because the applicant pool was broader, it was also often of higher quality and men would secure more job offers as a result.

Interestingly, these men were also found to perform well in their role and were no more likely to leave the job than the smaller number of men who would ordinarily have applied.

There were, however, consequences for women, as while they were largely insensitive to information provision, they were found to be less likely to apply, and then more likely to quit if they get the job, when they believe that there is a greater proportion of men in the job.  This phenomenon was largely constrained to less talented women, however, so greater equality does tend to increase the quality of the talent pool.

Correcting the picture

Often attempts to rectify any unequal gender representation in the workplace focus on ensuring adverts portray a good mix of people.  This does have merit, for a 2015 study found that Google images are often highly unrepresentative when people search for particular careers.  What’s more, these skewed perspectives manifested themselves in the actual opinion people had of gender diversity in those respective fields.

The Bocconi researcher highlights a campaign from the Oregon Center for Nursing, which asked men whether they were “man enough to be a nurse” in a 2002 recruitment campaign.  Similarly, the U.K.’s National Health Service strive to provide a more realistic representation of male nurses as it strives to grapple with the huge labor shortages.  She is skeptical, however, about just how much of a difference these campaigns will make.

Nonetheless, the benefits from both reducing the stigma associated with men working in so-called female occupations, and indeed promoting the returns men perceive they will get from doing so, are evident in raising the overall quality of the workforce, especially in sectors that are struggling to attract the talent they need to thrive.