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Many Men Would Rather Be Unemployed Than Do 'Women's Work'

A new US report has found female-dominated industries like health care services and education continue to see a rise in new jobs.

The latest US jobs report marked 75 consecutive months of job growth and highlighted that Obama created over 11 million jobs during his presidency. It also offered a glimpse at how perceived gender roles impact the labor market.

According to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning, male-oriented industries continue to add fewer positions than female-oriented fields. The manufacturing industry, for example, posted a gain of only 17,000 jobs in December, after losing positions in both October and November. Comparatively, the education and healthcare industries, both described as "pink-collar" work because more women generally work in those fields, added 70,000 jobs last month.

Currently, the unemployment rate for adult men is 4.4 percent; for women, it's 4.3 percent. One solution for men would appear obvious: Those who were once locomotive firers and electronic equipment installers, positions predicted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to decline the fastest from 2014 to 2024, should transition into fields that are actually seeing growth. A Pew Research Center study released last October reported that education and health services have shown the quickest employment growth in the past 25 years.

But, according to analysis from the  New York Times, men don't want those jobs because they're mostly held by women.

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