Sociology Index

PINK COLLAR

Under United States Law, a pink-collar worker has a position that is traditionally filled by a woman. Pink collar job denotes jobs and employment sectors dominated by women workers. The term pink collar was used in order to distinguish certain jobs from white collar jobs, and also to distinguish women in these roles from other white-collar workers. Pink collar work did not require much professional training. Pink collar work did not offer equal pay or prestige. To understand what a pink-collar job is, we have to go back in time. A time when women were expected to be daughters, wives, and mothers while men were expected to be the breadwinner of their family. It was a time of the Cult of Domesticity. Pink-Collar Crimes are those that are committed in a Pink-Collar Ghetto.

Pink collar positions have increased as more and more women enter the workforce. Industrialization has increased the scope for the services provided by pink collar workers. Though equal rights and equal pay legislation have been passed by most countries, women in pink-collar jobs are still getting paid less that what men generally get paid The standards of a pink-collared job have changed.

Pink-collar employees now have a chance to further their career and reach higher positions through career advancement. Therefore, more men are entering these pink-collar jobs.

A pink-collar worker is someone working in the care-oriented career field or in fields considered to be women’s work. Pink-collar work includes jobs in the beauty industry, nursing, social work, teaching, secretarial work, or child care. In the United States, women comprise 92.1% of the registered nurses that are currently employed. Very few women work in blue-collar jobs. This kind of segregation will have negative impact in the long run because caregivers get paid much less than blue-collar and white-collar workers, who often get unionized wages.

Women who head nonprofit agencies in Pennsylvania have fallen into a pink collar ghetto where their salaries lag way behind those earned by their male counterparts. Of course, what you're looking at is a pink collar ghetto, said Peggy M. Outon, executive director of the Bayer Center at Robert Morris University in Moon, which annually surveys salaries of male and female nonprofit leaders in the area.

Pink collar work did not require much professional training and did not offer equal pay or prestige. Pink collar positions have increased as more and more women enter the workforce. Industrialization has increased the scope for the services provided by pink collar workers.

Pink Collar Workers
by Louise Kapp Howe. I too am stuck in a pink collar job always hated after reading this book, it helped me to realize the injustice i have indulged all my life stuck in this type of job. - Reviwed by Monique.