Smiling business women working on the laptop together.
In the constellation of labor, certain jobs orbit persistently around women—teaching, caregiving, nursing, administrative support—roles requiring interpersonal skill, empathy, patience, and a seemingly bottomless well of compassion. These professions, often called “pink collar” jobs, are historically and culturally feminized occupations, rooted in the false but persistent belief that women are naturally better at them. What’s less discussed—but deeply connected—is the reality of emotional labor and how it props up this entire category of work, usually invisibly, often without compensation, and rarely with recognition.
As someone who has spent years researching and speaking about emotional labor—the invisible, mental, and emotional effort it takes to manage households, relationships, and the wellbeing of others—I can confidently say: pink collar jobs are emotional labor in professional form. And the persistent undervaluation of this work is a product of centuries of mythmaking about gender, skill, and worth.
From white collar to pink collar
I wrote about the origins of the pink collar workforce in my book on emotional labor. As it turns out, the corporate workplace was never designed for women. Prior to World War I, as corporate America expanded, white-collar jobs like secretaries and typists were filled by men. A male secretary often had a kind of father-son relationship with his boss, a dynamic that included mentorship and upward mobility. But when war drew these men away and women took their places, the dynamic shifted. The professional relationship between boss and secretary became a proxy for the husband-wife relationship—and the work changed with it.
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Tasks such as making coffee, picking up laundry, even buying gifts for both wives and mistresses became part of the job. These aren’t just stereotypes from 1950s movies—they reflect the reality of how women's labor has been quietly co-opted into support roles that mimic unpaid household labor. Women in offices became emotional labor engines: organizing sympathy cards, coordinating birthday cakes, setting up office parties, smoothing interpersonal rifts, and more.
As historian Lisa Fine notes in her study of female office workers in early 20th-century Chicago, women entering office work often found themselves in roles identical to men’s—but were considered temporary, paid less, and denied advancement because of the assumption they would eventually marry and leave. The path to professional advancement split by gender: men could become executives; women could become executive secretaries.
This gendered occupational divide turned white collar into pink collar.
Emotional labor at work and home
Pink collar jobs institutionalize emotional labor. Dr. Mary E. Guy, and her colleagues, remind us that teachers don’t just teach; they mediate family trauma, manage behavior, provide therapy in the form of “good listening,” and buy school supplies with their own money. Nurses don’t just heal the body; they soothe anxieties, hold hands, navigate bureaucracy, and serve as emotional translators between patients and doctors, according to sociologist Mignon Duffy. Administrative assistants keep not only calendars, but also emotional equilibrium in offices across the country.
These are not side duties—they are central to the success of the job. But because the work is emotional, relational, and often invisible, it is not perceived as “real labor,” as economist Nancy Folbre described way back in 2001.
What’s more, the traditional workplace has never fully adjusted to the reality that women are still expected to do most of the caregiving and emotional maintenance at home. The hours of the standard workday don’t align with the school day. Flex time didn’t exist when women entered the workforce in greater numbers after World War II—and for many, it still doesn’t. If the workplace is not designed for women, but society still expects them to keep the home fires burning, exhaustion is not just common—it’s inevitable.
The myth of “natural” abilities
The most insidious myth surrounding women’s work—at home or in the workplace—is the idea that women are simply better at caregiving, organizing, supporting, and softening the world. But what we call “natural” is almost always cultural, according to sociologist Cecelia Ridgeway.
In her important work on gender differences, Jessica Borelli, tells us that girls are socialized from early ages to be helpers, fixers, soothers. They are praised for being tidy, quiet, and thoughtful. They are taught to anticipate needs, to make others feel comfortable, to accommodate. They are raised to notice everything about the needs of the people around them. By the time they enter the workforce, they’ve already had years of informal training in emotional labor. But rather than being recognized as skilled laborers, they are seen as fulfilling their destiny—just doing what women do.
When women excel in pink collar roles, the success is attributed to personality, not professionalism. When men enter these same roles, they are often fast-tracked into leadership. A woman is nurturing; a man doing the same job is “patient under pressure” and “destined for management,” according to Paula England, a leading researcher in her field.
Related: Women under financial strain: 4 in 10 report high stress levels
Economic inequality, one kindness at a time
The result of this systemic devaluation is predictable: lower wages, fewer benefits, slower promotion tracks, and burnout. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs in education, health services, and administrative support consistently rank among the lowest-paid sectors, despite requiring high emotional engagement, education, and expertise.
This isn’t a coincidence—it’s a reflection of what society values. Or, rather, what it fails to value. The work of caretaking, mentoring, calming, cleaning, organizing, and healing is essential. And yet, when it’s coded as female, as Michelle Budig and Paula England tell us, the work becomes invisible, naturalized, and ultimately disposable. In fact, according to New Zealand economist Marilyn Waring, the work of at-home caregiving is not, nor has it ever been, included in the calculations of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an oversight of significant importance.
In this way, emotional labor and pink collar work are not only linked—they are the same systemic problem, playing out across the public and private spheres. Women are paid less, promoted less, and acknowledged less not because their work has less value, but because the culture still insists that this work isn’t really work at all.
Reframing “women’s work”
To dismantle this myth, we must start with language and visibility. Calling out emotional labor as labor is a powerful act of naming. Reframing pink collar work as skilled, professional, and critical is another. We must disrupt the idea that empathy is easy, that caretaking is innate, and that organizing lives—whether at home or in a medical office—isn’t worthy of economic and cultural respect, as Joan Williams reminds us. We also need to change the way we talk about these roles in business and policy. Emotional labor should be factored into job descriptions, performance evaluations, and promotions. Compensation should reflect the full scope of work performed, not just the tasks that show up on a spreadsheet.
And men must be included—not as saviors or “helpers,” but as full participants. Sharing the load, both at home and at work, will help dissolve the false dichotomy between “real work” and “women’s work.”
A future where all labor is valued
Imagine a world in which a kindergarten teacher is compensated like an engineer, not because of charity or guilt, but because we recognize the profound skill and impact that role demands. Imagine if “support staff” were rebranded as “organizational navigators” or “workflow strategists”—not as a PR stunt, but as an honest reflection of their daily contributions.
The first step to imagining that world is understanding that the current one is built on centuries-old assumptions about gender and labor that no longer serve us—if they ever did.
My work on emotional labor has always been about making the invisible visible, the devalued dignified, the assumed intentional. Pink collar jobs are not “less than.” They are the foundation. It’s time we built systems that reflect that truth—not just in sentiment, but in structure, compensation, and respect.
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Dr. Regina Lark
Dr. Regina Lark is a leading voice on emotional labor, gender equity, and the invisible systems that shape women’s work. She is the founder and owner of A Clear Path, a Los Angeles-based professional organizing company specializing in move management, downsizing, and decluttering. Regina brings both academic insight and real-world experience to the conversation on caregiving and the undervalued labor women perform at home and in the workplace. Author of Emotional Labor: Why A Woman’s Work Is Never Done and What to Do About It, she advocates for structural change that honors emotional labor as skilled, essential work.
