In recent weeks, education and health workers have taken to the streets to rightly demand better wages and working conditions. Beyond negotiations, these strikes are a call to recognize the fact that predominantly female professions are undervalued.
Women play leading roles in our hospitals and schools and dedicate their lives to caring for and training our loved ones. Women make up 91% of regulated nurses in Canada and make up 75% of all paid healthcare workers. In the education sector, women account for 76% of teaching staff in public primary and secondary schools. The education of our children, the health of the population and the proper functioning of society rest on their shoulders.
However, despite their essential role, members of the nursing and teaching staff remain poorly paid and often poorly recognized. The lack of consideration for these essential public sectors is a symptom of a larger problem: persistent gender stereotypes mean that work typically associated with women is of lesser value.
Study after study shows that female-dominated professions tend to be perceived as less intellectually demanding. A large-scale Princeton University study finds that female-dominated fields, like education, are perceived to have fewer talented people. Some of my doctoral research at Concordia University indicates that male-dominated sectors are generally perceived as requiring great intellectual abilities.
Such stereotypes perpetuate gender disparities across disciplines, and it is easy to speculate that they can influence policy decisions and resource allocation, ultimately contributing to the chronic underfunding of sectors like those of education and health care.
Let us clarify that women are not more attracted to underpaid or undervalued fields; on the contrary, estates lose their social value as women enter them in large numbers. These are beliefs that have their origins in ancient social norms. Take the example of computing, where women have been pioneers. In the 1940s and 1950s, programming was presented as a woman’s job. These jobs were therefore poorly recognized and poorly paid. When men began to take more space in this sector, its prestige increased and salaries increased.
The opposite is also true for teaching and nursing. Some will be surprised to learn that most teachers used to be men. When women began entering the profession in large numbers, funding declined and teaching was viewed less favorably. In general, compensation and recognition decrease when a profession becomes predominantly female.
This situation can be observed in countless fields, regardless of qualifications or skills. The still very significant pay gap between sectors dominated by men and those dominated by women clearly illustrates this reality.
Women have long been expected to provide care without being properly recognized or compensated. We always take it for granted that it is up to them to do household chores and raise children. These cultural expectations are transposed to the world of work, justifying the absence of adequate remuneration and recognition. However, as we have all seen during the pandemic, this type of work is extremely demanding. The healthcare workers were then rightly hailed as heroes. However, their tireless dedication contrasts sharply with the inadequate recognition and remuneration they receive.
Schools and hospitals are overflowing, staff are overloaded, but demand continues to increase. We cannot continue to take advantage of women in caring roles without due recognition — it is exploitation, whether we want to admit it that way or not. The conditions in which these people are asked to work not only perpetuate an injustice: they are also harmful to society as a whole.
Prime Minister Legault recently called for an end to strikes so as not to harm children. In reality, it is the insufficient support that teaching and health care personnel receive that endangers our children as well as the entire foundations of education and health care in Quebec. Society must review its priorities. Policies and spending allocations must be reassessed to reflect the true value of these professions.
While education and health care workers courageously fight against the status quo, we must collectively shape a future where the undervaluation of these predominantly female sectors will be nothing more than a relic of the past. The well-being of our society is at stake.