Men Are Experiencing More Job Growth Than Women in AI-Exposed Occupations

A Pew Research Center analysis of government data found that employment in occupations more exposed to generative AI grew much faster for men than for women between 2017-19 and January 2023-June 2026. For each 1-point increase in an occupation's AI exposure score, men's employment grew by 6.3% while women's barely changed at 0.2%.

The gap is concentrated among workers without a bachelor's degree. Among those with a high school diploma or less, men's employment rose 8.8% per exposure point while women's fell 9.5%. For workers with a bachelor's degree or higher, neither group's employment changed significantly with exposure.

Women without degrees often work as secretaries, receptionists and customer service representatives, which sit in the middle to upper part of the exposure scale. Men without degrees mostly work in low-exposure jobs such as truck driving and construction labor, so the male growth applies to a small share of them. Pew cautions that other changes in the period may also have affected employment.

Pew measured employment growth as the percent change in the number of people employed in an occupation, and compared men's growth with women's within each occupation. It did not compare occupations with each other and said it was not suggesting any job is inherently men's or women's work.

Exposure scores reflect how many of an occupation's most important tasks generative AI can perform or assist with. A score of zero marks the least exposed occupation in the data, not one with no AI exposure. Low-exposure examples include construction laborers (0.70) and home health aides (1.14).

Pew notes that the education split matters: men without degrees are not heavily represented in high-exposure jobs, while women with the same education often work in roles such as secretaries, receptionists and customer service representatives, where chatbots and automated support play a larger role.