AI has an unexpected side effect: It could make high-paying jobs less hostile to women
The conversation about AI and work revolves mostly around jobs being destroyed or new ones emerging, around the workers benefiting and those likely to be left behind. All these debates are legitimate. But there are so many other aspects and consequences that are rarely addressed. For one, AI has a women problem—with more of them opting out. The data that trains the technology reflects centuries of male-dominated knowledge production, erasing women’s experiences and perspectives from the models that are now reshaping how we work. The jobs it is eliminating fastest are disproportionately held by women: administrative roles, data processing, customer service, the vast army of routine cognitive work that the female workforce has long depended on. And the people building these systems and making the design choices that will shape labor markets for decades are, overwhelmingly, men. All of this is true. And it matters enormously. But there is a second story about artificial intelligence and gender that almost nobody is telling—one that may run in the opposite direction for other women whose jobs are transformed. Interestingly, AI could reduce the gender pay gap in the highest-paying professions … as an unintended consequence of what automation does to the jobs that pay the most. The mechanism is less intuitive than it sounds, and it involves a concept that economists like Claudia Goldin call greedy jobs. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-169.jpg","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2026\/01\/PhotoLVitaud-11.jpg","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Laetitia@Work\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Women power the world’s productivity. It’s time we talked more about it. Explore a woman-centered take on work, from hidden discrimination to cultural myths about aging an