Men as Minority

Abstract

Although social care employees are predominantly women, there have always been men involved in the work, particularly as managers or where there is a control element. The academic writing on men's involvement in social care lacks an empirical base and this article presents an examination of the characteristics, distribution and routes into social care of 585 men who took part in a UK study of 2031 statutory social services employees.• Findings: The respondents were a heterogeneous group of men, employed throughout social care, mostly but not exclusively in jobs associated with traditional male roles. Men constitute 14 percent of the UK social services workforce and predictably are disproportionately represented in management. However, the majority (three-fifths) are employed in basic grade field, residential and home care jobs. • Applications: This is an important issue for social care employers: men face particular sets of difficulties in social care employment. With the decline in traditional employment opportunities, men may increasingly diversify into less traditional areas of work, including health and social care.Keywords diversity employment men social care work 45 Journal of Social Work 3(1): 45-68

Men in pink collars: Stereotype threat and disengagement among male teachers and child protection workers

“…Thus, there is also some support for the competing hypothesis that male employees in female-dominated fields are somewhat protected by the career advantages they receive. Indeed, in both social work and primary school teaching, men are disproportionately represented at the managerial level (Addi-Raccah & Ayalon, 2002;McLean, 2003). Perhaps men in pink-collar professions are buffered against stereotype threat to some degree through their aspirations to achieve these male-dominated managerial roles, about which there are positive masculine stereotypes.…”

“Little Girls” and “Bitching Up”

“…Specifically, while 60% of senior managers were men, the proportion of men decreased and the proportion of women increased with each position type conceived as a step down in terms of status, with men being: 25% of first-tier managers, 21% of field workers, 15% of residential workers, and 1% of home care workers. Nevertheless, most men were not senior managers; as McLean (2003) observed, "in spite of the higher proportion of men in higher-status jobs, the majority were in basic grade jobs as field worker, residential worker, or home care worker" (p. 53). However, 42% were either first-tier or senior managers, clearly disproportionate to their representation in social care/social work of 14%.…”

“…In social work, this segregation is both vertical/hierarchical (i.e., involving the overrepresentation of men in leadership positions relative to their overall numbers within the field and horizontal/related to distribution across specializations and areas of practice). McLean (2003) analyzed the distribution of 585 British men who participated in the workforce studies by the National Institute for Social Work and found that while men composed 14% of the British social care/social work workforce, they were disproportionately represented in management positions. Specifically, while 60% of senior managers were men, the proportion of men decreased and the proportion of women increased with each position type conceived as a step down in terms of status, with men being: 25% of first-tier managers, 21% of field workers, 15% of residential workers, and 1% of home care workers.…”

“…(p. 63) In general, caregiving work is often undervalued and seen as a natural extension of women's kinship and household responsibilities (Lewis, 2004). While male workers in caregiving occupations may explicitly or implicitly challenge the conflation of caregiving work with femininity (Leonard, 2003;Warde, 2009a), the need for this challenge highlights the fundamental ideological incompatibility of care work with notions of hegemonic masculinity (Connell, 2009;Gillingham, 2006;McLean, 2003). In social work, caregiving work is seen as natural for the profession's predominantly female practitioners and is "therefore given little recognition in terms of social status and prestige" (Lewis, 2004).…”

“…Overall, there is evidence of sufficient depth and breadth for reaching the conclusion that social work is deeply gendered work: Social work is a female-predominant profession (McPhail, 2004) that has seen increased feminization since the 1950s (Schilling et al, 2008), essentialist ideas of female caregiving contribute to reduced status and remuneration in the social work field (Lewis, 2004), both men and women "do gender" in both conventional and transformative ways in social work (Christie, 1998(Christie, , 2006Gillingham, 2006;Lewis, 2004;McLean, 2003;Warde, 2009a), and there is significant horizontal and vertical segregation within social work (McLean, 2003). Less is known about the impact of gender on the experiences of new social workers.…”