Why r the majority of Christian single women either teachers or nurses?
Posted : 1 Feb, 2009 02:34 AM
Good question. For one thing, you may find the majority of atheist women on sites are teachers/nurses, too. (The low-income and uneducated women are less likely to post on sites.) In actuality, the true majority of women are not nurses or teachers. However, these will be the two most represented occupations, simply because these two occupations represent a good number of the total jobs in the community, and 80% of teachers are female, and better than 95% of nurses are female (where is Affirmative Action with respect to these jobs. There are scholarships set aside for women to be lawyers, engineers, and to get their MBA, where are the male-only scholarships for schoolteachers and nursing? . . . ok, back to the topic . . .)
Another "reason" that these jobs are prominent among women is that 1) the path to get there is easy, in that the educational process is set up to cater to "needs" and learning styles of women. (Name me a male-dominated degree that you get 3-hours credit for making bulletin boards with craft-paper turkeys on them? Nurses have to memorize a LOT of technical detail and procedure stuff to get their degree, but they are not required to actually understand the "why" as is a doctor -- women are much better at rote memorization than are men, men are much better at understanding how systems work, which is why almost all auto mechanics are men. I'm talking group characteristics here, not about specific individuals.) 2) the jobs provide "recognition" and status in the community, yet, they still do not have a high level of authority, or decision-making responsibility; in schools, the principals, superintendents, and school boards make all the big decisions and set procedure and policy for the teachers to follow, and likewise, nurses are basically following protocol and instruction from physicians, pharmacy staff, and hospital administrators. When something happens "after hours" at the school, say at a ball game, the principal gets called to take care of it, not a teacher. And, at that same ball game, have you EVER heard the announcer ask, "is there a nurse in the house?" 3) Given the hours actually worked, the minimum required education to get the first job, and the fringe benefits (e.g. retirement, healthcare, etc) typically associated with the job; teaching and nursing pay better than most jobs. Average cash compensation for both nurses and teachers is over $50,000 a year. Both of those jobs are well above the paycheck of $30,000 for the average working American with a full-time job. Granted, you aren't going to get rich being a nurse or schoolteacher, but at the same time, I've never seen a nurse or school teacher living in low-income housing or using food stamps.
All-in-all, being a nurse or schoolteacher is an excellent profession from the viewpoint of work conditions and compensation. A CPA may earn more money, but those folks work some ungodly hours, too. Doctors make more money for sure, but they spend four more years in a very expensive medical school and another 3 years in some sort of residency before they start making that big money. Doctors also work an average of 70 hours a week.
