Breaking Gender Barriers: Bringing Men into the Pink-Collar Jobs of the Future

Traditionally female-dominated sectors are growing while traditionally male-dominated sectors are shrinking. And yet, sectorial male shares are not changing accordingly. Why don't men enter female-dominated occupations? I study men's selection into social work, a fast-growing occupation where the share of men has historically been below 25 percent. I embed a field experiment in the UK-wide recruitment of social workers to analyze barriers to men's entry and the nature of men's sorting into this occupation. I modify the content of recruitment messages to potential applicants to exogenously vary two key drivers of selection: perceived gender shares and expectations of returns to ability. I find that perceived gender shares do not affect men's applications. Increasing expected returns to ability encourages men to apply and improves the average quality of the applicants. This allows the employer to select more talented male hires, who consistently perform better on the job and are not more likely to leave vis-á-vis men with lower expected returns to ability. I conclude by checking for a trade-off between men's entry and women's exit, both at hiring and on-the-job, to assess the net impact of different recruitment messages for the employer.

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