Men 45% more likely to be fired than women but get paid more: Study

Men are more likely to work in more lucrative and volatile industries a study has found, leaving them 45% more likely to lose their jobs than women.

A study by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research found that women are more likely to work in lower-paid jobs with higher job security, such as education, health and government positions.

Men on the other hand are more likely to be found in construction and manufacturing, where the pay is higher but sackings are more common.

“The reason why men have a higher rate of dismissal is because they’re choosing riskier jobs, ones that are more susceptible to redundancy and dismissals,” report co-author Professor Roger Wilkins told SmartCompany.

“And jobs that have a higher risk of dismissal tend to pay more.”

According to Wilkins people in fields with the highest rates of dismissal (where 15% of workers in a sector get dismissed) are paid about 12% more than those with the lowest rates of dismissal.

Wilkins says the study of almost 14,000 people (based on data collected from 2001-2009 by the Household Income and Dynamics Survey) provides insights into the pay gap between women and men.

“One of the issues that researchers have been concerned with is why men get paid more than women,” Wilkins says.

“Discrimination has come up as a factor, but there are other factors such as work experience and hours worked.”

The study is another piece of the puzzle to explain some of the differences, Wilkins says.

He says paths chosen by men and women might reflect different risk appetites between the sexes.

“It may be that women and men have different preferences with regards to risk,” Wilkins says.

“We know that men are more likely to indulge in risky behaviour.”

The study also found that extroverts are more likely to be fired than introverts.

If there are five stages of grief a study by Google suggests that there are four stages of unemployment.

According to the Australian Financial Review the study by the search engine giant found the type of information sought by a job seeker changes the longer the individual is out of work.

The investigation found that when a person is first out of work he or she looks for practical information such as signing up for unemployment benefits and looking up entitlements.

The individual then starts searching for jobs and looks up hints for resume-writing and interview techniques.

That is followed by searches to fill in time or perhaps the pursuit of long-deferred passions, such as learning a musical instrument.

As days turn into weeks searches reportedly take on a more “adult” tone, namely seeking out pornography.