> Which sure sounds to me like "employers try to fill low-status, low-pay, often-crappy female-dominated jobs with yet more females".
That reflects an outmoded view of the labor market. These are good jobs for people who lack a college degree. Lots of the women in my wife's family have similar jobs. It's not like their brothers--i.e. men from similar educational and class backgrounds--are becoming doctors instead of nurses, or college professors instead of preschool teachers.
Yes, to a degree. But there are quite a few male-dominated fields with similar career prospects - semi-skilled building trades, road construction, sanitation work, truck driver, etc., etc. And there are often male niches within the female-dominated jobs - for adult patients who may be infirm, any decent-sized health facility will need some larger & more muscular workers (very likely male) on every nursing shift.
Those jobs are generally more physically demanding and dangerous, to offset the slightly higher pay. After my FIL dropped out of college, he worked as a window washer and forklift driver. Yes these are "male-dominated fields" but that's not because women are applying to these jobs and being excluded. Also, these jobs have been much harder hit by illegal immigration than most corresponding jobs for women.
That reflects an outmoded view of the labor market. These are good jobs for people who lack a college degree. Lots of the women in my wife's family have similar jobs. It's not like their brothers--i.e. men from similar educational and class backgrounds--are becoming doctors instead of nurses, or college professors instead of preschool teachers.