Business Week ran a story over the weekend about how the economic meltdown is hitting male-dominated jobs, such as those in car manufacturing and finance, much harder than the service sector, where jobs are more often held by women. 

Good thing they call upon a sociologist to sort this out for their readers…

“In a society where services are becoming increasingly important, women quite simply have the better jobs,” says Hans Bertram, a sociologist at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Bertram is not at all surprised by the fact that it is men who are worst affected by the crisis. “That was historically always the case, for example when you look at the collapse of the steel and coal industries in the Ruhr industrial region,” he says. Unemployment has always been a part of life in an industrialized country, and belongs to the rhythm of industrial society. “As long as someone is young and strong, he can make good money as a construction worker. But once you are 35 and your body won’t cooperate any more, there are fewer prospects,” Bertram explains.

He thinks it unlikely that, for example, former Opel workers will simply retrain to work in the service sector. “You can’t turn a steel worker into a call center agent,” he says. The service industry usually requires higher qualifications and these are not easily acquired later on in life, he explains.

“The change will only come with the generations,” Bertram says. “Perhaps young men will now more often decide against becoming a mechanic or a construction worker and instead opt to train as a nurse.”

Read more.