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Scott Galloway's father and mother both left school in the eighth grade. When his father moved to Ohio with his new wife, he continued his ascent toward the upper middle class, while Galloway and his mother dropped straight down into what he calls the upper lower middle class.
The jobs open to the two of them had almost nothing in common. His father, handsome and Scottish, could work as a salesperson and make a very good living. His mother couldn't even become a teacher, because she lacked the credentials.
Women have kids, and they are more likely than men to stay loyal to a child when a father takes off, which leaves them more exposed. That stretch was the most vulnerable, anxiety-riddled part of Galloway's life, and his mother felt very vulnerable too.
Why were so many women steered into clerical work?
Clerical work became a mostly female occupation in the early twentieth century, after the typewriter and the telephone created huge numbers of office jobs. Economist Claudia Goldin, who won the 2023 Nobel Prize in economics, has documented how employers came to treat those jobs as women's work. Teaching and nursing were the other large occupations open to women for much of the century. Into the 1960s, many American women worked in only a handful of job categories.
How did travel agent jobs disappear?
Travel agents once earned most of their income from commissions that airlines paid on each ticket sold. In the 1990s, airlines began capping those commissions, which cut into agency revenue. Online booking sites then let travelers buy tickets directly, and Expedia launched in 1996. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics now counts travel agent as a small occupation with little expected growth.
Why do teaching jobs require credentials?
In the United States, public school teachers are licensed by each state, and the license typically requires a bachelor's degree and completion of a teacher preparation program. The system grew out of the normal schools of the nineteenth century, which trained teachers for the expanding public school system. Licensing was meant to set a common standard of preparation across districts. Requirements still vary from state to state.
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