Masculinities, femininities and work – horizontal gender segregation in the Danish labour market

Abstract

This article focuses on horizontal gender segregation in the Danish labour market; the fact that women and men are employed in different sectors, professions and with different work tasks. The aim of the article is to provide a better understanding of the gender marking processes that create horizontal gender segregation in the labour market. I do this by investigating how societal and cultural constructions of and relations between gender and work influence the thoughts and actions of women and men in work life. The article is based on two studies of women in men’s job and men in women’s job. These studies were based on interviews with male nurses and female police officers (Bloksgaard & Faber 2004) and male healthcare workers and female electrical technicians (Bloksgaard 2998c) to illuminate the meaning of gender in their choice of profession and work life. The analysis shows how professions and work tasks are created and marked as either ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’. Here, women and men generally seek to live up to the societal and cultural ideas of ‘gender appropriate behaviour’. Therefore, they choose professions and work tasks that ‘make sense’ according to their own self image and gender identity. Thus, the article illustrates how women and men develop individual and gendered identities in relation to societal ideas of gender and work that are central to understanding gender segregation in the labour market.