Male Vs. Female Jobs: Jobs Dominated By One Gender

According to the BLS, 46.8% of the US workforce is female.

However, many jobs skew heavily male or female. In fact, your odds of getting a male Kindergarten teacher is about 1-in-100. Is your AC broken? Only about a 1% chance the worker who comes to fix it is a woman.

Whether due to stereotypes, society, preferences, or a little bit of all the above, some jobs are simply occupied disproportionately by one gender.

Using data from the BLS, we highlighted the most male- and most female- jobs, along with what that just might mean for the job market.

A technical writer and an insurance salesperson walk into a bar. What do they have in common? They, along with the bartender, are all about just as likely to be a man as a woman.

Below you can see a chart for the jobs with the fewest women workers.

Methodology

This data comes from the BLS’ most recent report on the percentage of female workers in over 500 job categories.

We simply sorted the data by the percentage of female workers to find the jobs with the most female workers. From there, we subtracted the number of female workers from the total workers count to determine the number of male workers.

Some of the titles in the charts have been cleaned up for user readability.

Male Vs. Female Jobs FAQ

1. Which job is the most female-dominated?

   Pre-school and kindergarten jobs are the most female-dominated jobs, with 98.8% of workers being female. For context, this means that out of every 100,000 teachers for this age range, a whopping 98,800 of those teachers would be female. Here is a list of the other top 5 female-dominated jobs:

   • Medical records specialists: 95.9% female

   • Childcare workers: 94.8%

   • Speech-language pathologists: 94.4%

   • Dental hygienists: 93.9%

2. Which job is the most male-dominated?

   Brickmason/stonemason jobs are the most male-dominated jobs, with 99.7% of workers being male. For context, this means that out of every 100,000 brickmasons/stonemasons, a whopping 99,700 of them would be male (only 300 female!). Here is a list of the other top 5 male-dominated jobs:

   • Brickmasons/stonemasons: 99.7% male

   • Heavy vehicle mechanics: 99.2%

   • Crane and tower operators: 99.2%

   • Automotive body repairs: 99.0%

3. What jobs are limited by gender?

   There are a few common jobs legally limited by gender. These jobs include:

   • Entertainment jobs: Dancers, singers, and actors need to fit certain roles, often making their jobs incredibly limited by their gender. For instance, a record label would likely need a female to sing soprano, and a movie with a male protagonist would need a male actor.

   • Bathroom attendants: Most people are most comfortable when a bathroom attendant matches their respective gender, making it common for companies to hire based on gender. This is also an efficiency issue, as bathroom attendants of the opposite gender usually need to wait until there is no one in the bathroom to clean it.

   • Catholic priests/nuns: Many religions, catholicism included, have separate roles for each gender. In this case, priests need to be male and nuns must be female.

   • Sports jobs: Most sports have different men’s and women’s teams, meaning that athletes will usually be hired to a team based on gender.

An Unfortunate Implication

Unfortunately, there exists a gender pay gap. Jobs dominated by women seem to trail behind those dominated by men in pay. The disparity only grows when you take into account the level of education required.

A prime example of this disparity is teachers. While teachers in all states require a Bachelor’s Degree– and a Master’s in many- the pay is below the average earnings of other positions with these requirements. Similarly, even though nurses are in extreme demand, pay for healthcare positions dominated by women lags behind.

For a majority of these professions’ history, they were some of the few options available to educated female workers, providing employers with a glut of talent with few other employment avenues.

However, to remain competitive (or address employment shortages) both fields, among others, may need to focus on targeting half the population who is less inclined to apply.

Similarly, many of the trades face looming shortages. Yet, in some highly needed trades, over 90% of workers are men. See the problem?

Author

Kathy Morris

Kathy is the head of content at Zippia with a knack for engaging audiences. Prior to joining Zippia, Kathy worked at Gateway Blend growing audiences across diverse brands. She graduated from Troy University with a degree in Social Science Education.