ABSTRACT
The increase in health employment has been primarily an increase in women employees. Many apparent advantages to physicians and other elites in the health industry accrue to the hiring of women. A labor force composed mostly of women can be hired more cheaply than one composed mostly of men. Women can be paid less than men would be paid for the same work. Median full-time earnings in hospital employment are the median for workers in all industries for the categories of white women, black men, and black women. Women accept the interpersonal subordination assigned to them in health service for the same reasons they accept low pay: there is a lack of alternatives. The behavior patterns seen in hospitals between women and men of different occupations are very much sex-status patterns, just as the interpersonal relations between blacks and whites of different occupations are racial relations.
