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Someone Asks Women With Low-Stress And Well-Paying Jobs, “What Is It That You Do?” And 30 Reply
Interview
The gender gap in pay has remained relatively stable in the US over the past 15 years or so. In 2020, women earned 84% of what men earned, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full- and part-time workers.
Even though women have increased their presence in higher-paying jobs traditionally dominated by men, such as professional and managerial positions, women as a whole continue to be overrepresented in lower-paying occupations relative to their share of the workforce. The ongoing wage discrepancy is caused by many factors including gender discrimination, motherhood, and taking more time off work compared to men.
But despite that, some women have managed to settle into low-stress and well-paid jobs and are pretty happy with their careers. So today we are taking a look at their ‘career secrets’ as shared in response to the “Women with low stress and good paying jobs, what is it that you do?” thread from the Ask Women subreddit. Below we wrapped up the most interesting responses, so scroll down and share your thoughts in the comments.
Also, scroll down to Bored Panda’s interview with Dr. Audrey Tang, a chartered psychologist, spokesperson and award-winning book author who claims that we need to recognize that this is not “a case of ‘everyone has an equal opportunity.’ We have to see, truly, fully, and humbly, that our starting point is different and as such a meritocracy, while good in theory, faces huge obstacles in practice that many are not willing to acknowledge,” she argues.
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I work in a warehouse that sells commercial kitchen supplies. My manager is also a burnt out neurodivergent millennial; he takes mental health and having a healthy workplace environment seriously. This is the least stressed I've been in nine years.
To find out more about the gender pay gap, Bored Panda spoke with Dr. Audrey Tang, a chartered psychologist, media spokesperson and author of multiple books, including "Be A Great Manager Now", "The Leader's Guide to Mindfulness," and "The Leader's Guide to Resilience,” who happily shared some interesting insights about it. Prior to discussing the topic, Tang noted a few illuminating things.
First, “in grand slam tennis since 2007, the prize money is the same for men as women (women still play fewer sets),” she said. And second, “when it comes to paying, sometimes we DO need to take into account experience and caliber, not just gender,” Tang argues.
Having said that, Tang agreed that it is certainly a fair argument that women may not have had the same opportunity as men to build that quality and experience.
I'm a librarian at a university. I help folks to find materials and hear all about cool research pursuits. I also spend lots of time maintaining the collection and cataloguing old theses. The best part is connecting students with services to help them and making sure the library is accessible.
It's a huge library, and if I need a break from my desk I just wander around the shelves for a while.
My mom and I make and sell custom luxury beaded curtains. I had made one for myself and people loved it so we used stimulus money to build our inventory and went to work. Our standard item is $1355 and we have done $5000+ and several $3000+ orders. We just got one tonight which means I don't have to worry this month!
Senior cyber security engineer. I can work remotely from anywhere in the world, since my team is fully remote & we have folks from all over. Most of what I do is code review, staying up to date with happenings in the field, and answering questions, all of which I can mostly do from my phone. I also have very low oversight and near complete freedom on what I choose to work on.
I also make money in the lower 6 figures. Which sure, there's always gonna be someone to say that I could make more in the field, but it almost certainly wouldn't come with all of the same perks and entirely stress-free way of life. On top of that, the tech jobs that pay more are pretty much exclusively in areas with extremely high cost of living. I currently have no such burden.
This is basically my dream job.
You can work from anywhere and remote in from your phone andddd make lower 6 figures. That's the freaking dream!
Tang argues that “while we like to talk of 'meritocracy' - reward based on effort, the myth, as Sandel and many other writers propose, is that we do not all START from the same position.”
The book author and development coach argues that “a female who gets AAD in her exams but has only had one chance to do it, and was expected to care for her siblings and do a part-time job, could be seen as 'not as accomplished' as a male with AAC but who took his C grade twice to bump it up, had no other commitments and private tutoring.” Tang argues that only when the start line and obstacles are the same will it ever be a real meritocracy.
Court reporter here working in California!
I work in court for mostly calendar proceedings, so rarely do I have any take home work.
It’s 8am -5pm work days and it’s paid holidays, sick days, all the benefits and vacation time a year.
Depending on what state you live in, you could make a lot of money as a court reporter!
An in court court reporter makes like 109k a year your first year.
But as a freelancer, you could make easily 150k and more depending on what you provide and you don’t have to work 5 days a week!
The minimum per job now a days seems to me $575 per job, NOT per day.
Also, some agencies offer bonus money for you to take the job or drive to it. Bonus money isn’t anything less than $300.
So basically depending on what agency you work for as a deposition reporter, you could make $800 a day per job. So if you get a morning job and they need you in the afternoon, that’s another $800 plus however much pages you’re going to transcribe that day and other charges :)
It’s an easy way to make $3,000 a week at least in my state of California!
Depends on what kind of court you work in. Family and criminal court can give you PTSD
Very long night shifts in a convenience store. It's Japan so I can be alone on the shift, it's very safe and I can work at my own pace.
Canine Handler for the government. Best job I could ask for, my coworker is a rockstar.
Meanwhile, “women still have care demands placed on them more often than men, and often when it comes to one person staying to look after the children, it's often the woman as she's 'paid less'...” Tang wonders if that is a vicious cycle, “in part propagated by the above?”
At the same time, while there are often bio, psych and social reasons to explain most questions, in this case, we want to ignore biology, Tang said. “But socially, women still have expectations on them that they will take lower paid and part-time jobs (in fact, HMRC statistics show that furlough affected more women than men) and shoulder the child-rearing responsibilities. It is relatively recently we've moved to shared parental leave allowing parents to work out what suits them best... And going some way to remove any unconscious bias for employers that a woman is more likely to take time off for children,” Tang explained.
I'm an office assistant/receptionist and I don't make a s**t load of money, but I work 9 to 4:30 and my boss pays me until 5:30, he also pays for winter tires, brake changes, let's me take the days off I need for my kids or if I'm sick, let's me work from home if I need to, and he looks after his employees as if we were his family. He never allows us to become "stressed" and always tells us to speak up. I adore working for this company (it's a small company ) I may not get paid $30 an hour but I sure appreciate getting paid what I do and having an amazing workplace, co workers and boss.
Aerospace engineer. But I'd say it's mostly because I absolutely love what I do. Mostly younger engineers so not too much misogynistic BS to deal with either at work.
I work in that field and it's quite stressful. Lots of deadlines and pressure from the few big companies that actually make planes down the supply chain. Also the certification authority breathing down your neck - okay, rightfully so, as planes need to be a little bit safer than f*****g soda vending machines.
Data Scientist with (and this is key for no stress) a stay at home husband who handles ALL household chores and responsibilities.
So many men are against being a stay at home husband and I don't get it. I don't mind being a stay at home husband, I'll have time to work on my woodworking projects and I don't mind household chores. I'll run errands, I'll run the c**p out of those errands. Lol
And this is not just a social aspect; culturally, too, there may be certain behaviors expected of women. “These can be hard to break, especially if one loves their family and wants to retain their support and favor.”
“As such, psychological women may believe that this is the way and may also be less willing to ask for pay rises. Further research suggests that women are less likely to apply for a job where they don't meet all criteria (but could learn) compared to men,” Tang explained.
Tang also quoted an accountant, Kara Curtayne, who supports small businesses: “she'd like to see the end of women calling their business 'side hustles.' They ARE businesses and that shift psychologically may help them assert their value.”
I’m a freelance writer specializing in an area I find interesting. I have a chronic illness where one of the symptoms is chronic fatigue, so I can’t work as much as some other freelancers can, but I make enough money to live on comfortably.
Adult Content Creator. I had a "respectable" job before and I can't believe how much better my life is now. Im my own boss, work my own hours, dont deal with people I dont want to and pull 6 figures. The only downside is the stigma that comes with working in the sex industry. Most people have a lot of misconceptions and I myself was one of them before I got into it.
Programmer. Just learning that being overlooked lightens my workload substantially and I still get paid. So f**k it, I’m done fighting the ambitious fight and I’ll just take the paycheck and enjoy life. Hope my male coworkers enjoy their burnout.
While a stress free approach, it does make you easily expendable. Also the decision to stay over looked can easily be a 100k decision in regards to your salary.
To bring in some statistics, the ONS found that the gender pay gap in the UK in April 2021 was 7.9%, which was a downward trend from 9.0% in April 2019, but longer-term trends were not considered in this report. The ONS also noted that there was a larger difference in the pay gap "between employees aged 40 and over and those aged below 40" for those in full-time work, and it is noted in the Equality and Human Rights Research report in 2017 that London's gender pay gap is less compared to the rest of the country.
It doesn't sound like much, but i pet sit.
I make my own schedule, I don't have many face to face interactions with clients (I do an initial consultation to get familiar with their house and routine and everything else is text), I get to chill with animals and I don't have to market myself very much once I onboard enough clients. I don't have too much travel time between jobs because I limit my service area a ton (This took a long time to figure out exactly which neighborhoods took forever to get to even though they were "close"). Over the years I've built up clients that are loyal and like me so when I have to say no because I am traveling, I'm usually able to do it and be comfortable that they'll call back next time.
I make 20$ a visit for most of my clients, visits being approximately 30min. I managed to make a nice niche for myself locally with hobby farms and exotic animals since I have experience with them. The upside to hobby farms is I often get to keep eggs/produce that I pick up during my visit.
Right now I'm comfortable, but I also know that with a little effort I can be much busier and make more money. Even during my busy season I'm "working" about 4-6 hours a day.
I'd rather have a job with benefits and a regular schedule but at the moment with my kids and childcare situation, that's not possible but I also still need to make some money for the household to stay afloat, and this works for me right now without adding tons of stress. It doesn't feel like work most days. I enjoy my animals, I like most of my clients, I like getting to work outdoors, and I love the money and the tips.
The bad part is that I cannot ever travel for the holidays. From Oct 31 to mid-Jan, I am locked into being at home and pretty much work the whole season straight.
Annually one of my neighbors visits Poland with her dog and has me pet sit her two cats. She’s told me that I’m the best pet sitter she’s had because many times she’s come home and the cats have been too skinny and just terrified and hiding in a corner. When she got back after having me take care of the for the first time she said “they were just like ‘oh hey you’re back’” and they were happy and healthy! I did a great job and they both love me (one of them likes very few people) and she knows she can rely on me to help and take care of them. She also pays me quite a bit IMO for the 2 - 3 months she’s gone and sometimes she brings back souvenirs for me
Technical Writer. It requires qualifications, such as special training, but well worth it. And it's one of the roles in IT- which is such a male-dominated field, that being in a location in IT means the women's restroom at work never has a line or is out of soap, etc.
As a tech writer, i prefer being in the engineering group instead of IT. Working in the sane group as the engineers means more respect from them making reviews easier. Well... That and nobody reads the manuals.
Inclusion teacher, hear me out. I don't have a class, I am assigned to different classrooms to help kids with homework, I don't always need to make lesson plans, paperwork is light, and the people are great. 👩🏫
I don’t think this would fit into the “makes good money” category from the original question?
According to Tang, the biggest challenge is that the playing field is simply not the same for men and women. “Regardless whether we tackle discrimination and bias, if a family wishes to have children, it is the woman who has to carry the child, which can bring its own interruptions to work (whether she would want this or not).”
She added that similarly, menopause will also bring its own challenges with women saying it feels like "my body has let me down." Tang quoted Diane Danzebrink from Menopause Support UK who says that “she has counselled women who have chosen to give up jobs they loved and were extremely successful in because of the physical effects of the menopause.”
Self-employed rehabbing old houses. No stress as we pick the house, I design and help with general labor if needed and partner takes the lead in coordinating the trades. Otherwise I'm working from home 99% of the time writing checks and balancing the books.
I find it hard to believe that this is stress free. I can’t imagine many things more stressful
City bus operator . I used to manage fast food
Once I settled into the job, it is way less stress than my last one.
Tang continued by noting that we also have to look at historical context where men were seen as the people to "do business with." “Relating to women's health, a Radio 4 program interviewed a woman who said her GP discussed HER care with her husband rather than her, while she was still in the room... the challenge is not simply about overhauling archaic procedures, but also with changing the mindsets which have been established through many years of behaving in a certain way.”
I work in Australia and government office jobs here are extremely low stress and high paying. Wish I could land a permanent position but the contract I'm on is paying me a crazy high hourly rate, which I'm grateful for.
The hours are 37.5 a week. Hybrid WFH. I start whenever and finish whenever. I close my laptop when I hit my hours and don't think about my work again until I open it. I work on a marketing/product management team. It's nice to not have any "bottom line" in that we aren't selling anything tangible like the private sector. So it is way less stress as there aren't any monetary goals to reach.
My mum worked as a contractor for a government agency and was getting paid $45 an hour. She has now transferred to full time but still gets over $30 an hour.
Mental health therapist! It pays well, I get to have meaningful conversations with people all day, and I get to choose my own hours.
Narrative Designer in video games! Though there are a few caveats:
1) the stress is low because I work for a company that does not believe in crunch, which is still relatively rare in the industry. Being a woman also adds a certain stress that can be better or worse depending on the company and team you work with. It’s always sort of a cloud above your head, so to speak, but I’ve got a pretty good team so I’m one of the lucky ones in this case!
2) I only get paid decently because I job hopped a little bit and upped my salary each time before settling in where I am now - it is generally considered the only way to increase your salary in this industry at the moment. The upside is it is sort of expected of people to bounce around companies a little bit, so it isn’t necessarily considered a black mark on your C.V. or anything.
The gaming industry is notoriously bad, because so many people want to work there even for low salaries and long hours that they can afford to just burn through people.
The award-winning book author believes that this sort of behavior cannot help but contaminate others who experience it, “including women who may wish to speak up but feel they cannot.”
Last but not least, Tang reminds us that we must also remember that “ethnicity can add another barrier for women in the workplace as that can bring its own biases as well as its own uneven playing field. And you sometimes get 'lip service' being paid, i.e. women and ethnic minorities are on our board... but are they actually LISTENED TO!?”
Piano teacher. I'm trying to break the stereotype of piano teachers being old church ladies who teach half heartedly in their spare time. I put effort and truly care about every single student
I live in a city with a musical/theatrical academy, and I've never seen a piano teacher over 30 - they're all students trying to finance their studies.
Airline pilot. My job can definitely be stressful, like a few hours of no stress at all and then one little thing gets messed up and you're scrambling. For the most part it's fairly relaxed but it has its moments.
But really my low stress comes from my schedule. We're supposed to work about 80 hours a month, and those hours are doors closed to doors open, so basically our "work" hours are just the time spent moving passengers, not the hour and a half at least that it takes to get through security, get to the gate, wait for the plane, and do the whole preflight routine, or the time spent after you land. But all that being said if you're just working shifts where you do two 4 hour legs in a day then you're working 10 days a month.
I'm in the middle of two weeks off right now, not vacation time, just two weeks off because I got all my credit hours at the start and the end of the month.
So yeah, life's pretty relaxed. I get paid well, I have a mostly fun job, and I get plenty of down time. If you can get through the couple of years of training and then all the time building hours working shitty jobs for low pay (I did 4 years of flying cargo in shitty turboprops, and I definitely had an easier go of things than most of the people I went through training with), life really is great once you get to the airlines.
Business intelligence analyst. I really only work about 10 hours a week. The other 30 I spend scrolling Reddit waiting for a ticket to come in.
I’m an accountant at a biotech startup! I have a lot of responsibility, but I know I’m capable so it doesn’t particularly stress me out. I have a masters degree and about 4 years experience now, making $116k USD
Quality Designer at a video game studio that is anti-crunch.
Freelance graphic artist and interface design.
I make $50/hr, flexible hours, make my own schedule, I’m also a mom and regularly take as much sick / caregiver time off as I want with no repercussions. Canada. I have a husband who also works (more hours than I do, he is primary breadwinner as I’ve worked part time since having kiddo— we have a 2 acre hobby farm that takes up the rest of my/our time). My retired mom watches kiddo when I’m working if she’s not in school or with her dad.
I work in content marketing. I’m basically an overpaid blogger.
Wow, we are really not all constituted alike. The idea of maintaining control of a room of strange children all day sounds like the most stressful thing in the world to me!!
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Wow, we are really not all constituted alike. The idea of maintaining control of a room of strange children all day sounds like the most stressful thing in the world to me!!
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