The world of work is male?

Maybe I am making too much of this non the less.

The new talk 106 business editor was talking to George Hook yesterday and about unemployment down to 8.6% Job creation and so on. The business editor said it will be difficult to get unemployment lower despite the creation of 50,000 jobs next year as there would be increasing computation from woman entering the workforce and from returned emigrants. The implication being that jobs are male and that males were facing increased competition from woman.

Is the world of work not genderless and consists of adults looking for employment to support themselves?

That the days of a woman being supported by a man are long gone.

He did start to babel a bit at one stage so maybe he realised what he was saying.

gramar

No future in proofreading for you!

BoJack Horseman

I believe of those working, females slightly outnumber males.... what with construction employing fewer than it used to.

plus women have nicer bottoms & may sometimes wear a skirt.....so in that context, why bother employing a man!

Also, your first mistake was listening to Newstalk.

Hemerodrome

mariaalice wrote: »

He did start to babel a bit.

He's not the only one, you've given him a bit of computation.

gramar

gramar wrote: »

No future in proofreading for you!

Well fortunately for the world of publishing I don't make my living from proof reading.

mcko

Iook at nursing and primary teaching and see how well men do.

seamus

Ah George Hook. He's a relic from the 80s. Half his listeners are people who either find him comical or enjoy getting wound up.

Are you sure you heard it right? Where does he think this sudden influx of "extra" women is going to come from?

rab!dmonkey

As I understand it, women who describe themselves as housewives or similar are not considered 'unemployed'. If those women start seeking work, that increases the size of the workforce and therefore - number of jobs remaining the same - the percentage of the workforce who are unemployed. I didn't hear the show OP refers to, but as it was described I don't see any basis for inferring that the guest consider that 'jobs are male'. That more women entering the workforce would increase competition for men in the workforce is more or less self-evident, unless you believe that all women are inferior to all men. Are you suggesting that men ought to be protected from such competition? I'm not sure what the issue is.

seamus

seamus wrote: »

Ah George Hook. He's a relic from the 80s. Half his listeners are people who either find him comical or enjoy getting wound up.

Are you sure you heard it right? Where does he think this sudden influx of "extra" women is going to come from?

I do not like George Hook as a broadcaster to me he come across as a bit of windbag.

I did hear it right but missed a bit of the report.

My essential point is why are discussion like that centred around gender.

Why not talk about increased competition form those that are better qualified and so on? instead of seeing it as males facing competition from females in the employment market.

Do females ever face competation from males in the employment market

seamus

mariaalice wrote: »

My essential point is why are discussion like that centred around gender.

Why not talk about increased competition form those that are better qualified and so on? instead of seeing it as males facing competition from females in the employment market.

Do females ever face competation from males in the employment market

Yeah, I don't know why these things so frequently gain a gender component. There is a gender imbalance in the unemployment figures, far more unemployed men than women. But that's not anyone's fault, the duty is on the individual to chase the jobs rather than relying on the government to focus on creating more or less jobs for a gender.

I guess there's still an old mindset of man = provider, woman = carer. And the statistics show that this is still quite a prevalent pattern. Thus, the more conservative analyst would think that getting men back to work is more important than getting women back to work.

Which is nonsense of course, but you can see why they'd think it.

stefanovich

There's a fair bit of "positive" discrimination going on these days against white middle aged men.

Women being able to work effectively doubled the employable workforce. Employ people based on merit sure but we are in a situation now where both partners need to work usually. Numbers of employable people goes up, wages go down.

stefanovich

stefanovich wrote: »

There's a fair bit of "positive" discrimination going on these days against white middle aged men.

Women being able to work effectively doubled the employable workforce. Employ people based on merit sure but we are in a situation now where both partners need to work usually. Numbers of employable people goes up, wages go down.

I know you do not mean how it is coming across. Its not a case of women being able to work. We live in a more or less capitalist society where working for a living to support your self is expected and is the norm. It is not a gender issue any more.

Arbiter of Good Taste

mariaalice wrote: »

I know you do not mean how it is coming across. Its not a case of women being able to work. We live in a more or less capitalist society where working for a living to support your self is expected and is the norm. It is not a gender issue any more.

I presume that poster was referring to a time when women in many jobs i. Ireland were forced to give up work once they got married. This wasn't that long ago really. So that poster is right that a lot more women are "able" to work, which wasn't necessarily the case a generation ago.

seamus

stefanovich wrote: »

There's a fair bit of "positive" discrimination going on these days against white middle aged men.

There's certainly more than there has been, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's being done as much as it's talked about.

The only thing so far I've seen it in is political parties. The rest of the time it's people whinging on the radio about the lack of women in ICT and science, but there's not any real discrimination taking place against either women or men.

Baron Kurtz

It's a calamari miracle, MariaAlice.

He is talking rubbish - people coming back from abroad or returning to the workforce from caring duties will increase the workforce - and assuming they go straight into employment - that on it's own would bring down the unemployment rate.

If they don't go straight into employment it might stop the rate from falling.

What he was probably trying to say is that the absolute numbers unemployed might stay the same.

kunst nugget

mariaalice wrote: »

That the days of a woman being supported by a man are long gone.

A partner supporting another partner is not the sign of some evil misogyny - you do what you feel is best for your family. My wife gave up work to look after our children. Her mother had died when she was a teenager and had worked all her life to provide for her and her brother. My wife didn't want to miss out on our kids growing up and so, having factored in what childcare was going to cost us, she decided she'd rather be at home when the children are young. We have to be very conscious of how we spend our money but we feel the children are more settled and our evenings are not spent trying to sort out everything for the next day and there's no worrying about being late to pick the kids up from the childminders or taking days off when the children are sick.

My friend looks after his children while his wife goes to work and the same thing applies - it's the situation that suits them best.