For years, economists have predicted that artificial intelligence would hollow out the labor market. Machines, they argued, would write the code, analyze the contracts, draft the emails, and automate the tasks that once defined white-collar status. What would remain are the human skills machines cannot replicate: caregiving, teaching, coaching, mentoring, and relationship-building.
At first glance, that sounds like a victory for women. After all, women dominate these professions. They are the teachers, nurses, therapists, caregivers, social workers, and community builders who have long carried the emotional infrastructure of society. If AI makes relational work more valuable, shouldn’t the women already doing it finally reap the rewards?
History, however, suggests a more complicated reality.
A growing body of economic research shows that labor markets do not simply value work based on its importance; they value it based on who is doing it. One of the most striking findings comes from sociologist Paula England and her colleagues, who studied what happened when women entered occupations in large numbers during the second half of the twentieth century. The results were undeniable: when women moved into a field, pay often declined—even for the exact same work men had previously done. Conversely, when men entered fields in larger numbers, pay and prestige rose.
Computer programming offers the clearest example. Early programming was considered tedious, clerical, and relatively low-status, and women heavily represented the field. But as programming became lucrative, men increasingly entered it. Pay rose, status rose, and the cultural perception of the work transformed. We have seen this pattern repeatedly in biology, design, recreation, and hospitality. As England noted in a 2016 interview with The New York Times, once women start doing a job, “it just doesn’t look like it’s as important to the bottom line or requires as much skill.”
Now, AI may be setting up the same dynamic on a much larger scale.
Recent work by economist Alex Imas argues that as AI drives down the cost of producing knowledge and commodity goods, scarcity will migrate toward relational experiences and human connection. As societies grow wealthier through automation, demand will increasingly concentrate on things that still feel deeply human: trust, care, taste, guidance, presence, and empathy. If that happens, the sectors long dismissed as “soft” will become the most economically vital parts of the labor market.
We are already seeing the early stages of this shift. According to The Wall Street Journal, much of the recent job growth in the American economy has come from healthcare and social assistance—sectors dominated by women. California, long propped up by Big Tech and entertainment, is increasingly being sustained by healthcare employment, particularly in eldercare and behavioral health. The economy is becoming more relational, but compensation has yet to follow.
This creates a profound paradox at the center of the AI economy: the relational economy is already female-dominated because society undervalued it for decades. Care work has historically been treated less as specialized labor and more as an extension of women’s natural identity. Tending to the elderly, managing emotional dynamics, and building communities were framed as feminine instincts rather than economically valuable skills. The low pay reflected that assumption.
So, what happens if those sectors suddenly become growth industries?
If history is any guide, men will enter them in larger numbers. They always do when prestige and money arrive. And when that happens, wages may rise, but not necessarily for the women who built those professions in the first place.
The women already working in these fields negotiated their salaries against a baseline shaped by decades of gender discounting. New entrants, however, will arrive after the market has already hiked the price. Furthermore, men entering the sector will likely be viewed differently—not as “naturally nurturing,” but as “leadership coaches,” “wellness experts,” or “human-performance specialists.” The language changes, the status changes, and the compensation changes.
None of this means men shouldn't enter relational professions. A society that values caregiving more highly would be a genuine improvement over one that systematically undervalues it. But it raises a difficult question: when society finally decides this work matters, who actually benefits from that recognition?
The risk is not that men will enter the relational economy. The risk is that they will enter at a newly inflated baseline, while the women who built it remain tethered to the old one.