"Many of the secure jobs men once had preferred access to have been eliminated since the 1980s"

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/columnists/half-of-toronto-area-workers-have-fallen-into-precarious-employment-study/article9003680/

"Barely half of people working in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas have permanent, full-time jobs that provide benefits and stability." Wow. found the original report here

http://pepsouwt.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/its-more-than-poverty-feb-2013.pdf

"looks at the relationship between gender and the Employment Precarity Index. Men and women are equally likely to be in the precarious cluster, while women are marginally more likely to be in the secure cluster. At first, this may seem counterintuitive, but it reflects recent research suggesting that many of the secure jobs men once had preferred access to have been eliminated since the 1980s. This is a result of: • the decline of manufacturing • the falling rate of unionization • technological changes that reduced the demand for unskilled manual labour • the growth of the service sector.

Women have been less affected by these changes and, they have benefited from more secure employment in sectors such as health care, education, and the public sector. These sectors have been somewhat shielded from the recent turmoil in labour markets. This shift also reflects some of the real gains women have made since the 1970s in their demands for more equal treatment in labour markets.