At the entrance of a recently opened variety store in one of Jamaica’s newest shopping plazas, a modest sign is firmly attached to a concrete column.

“Notice: We are currently recruiting students, part-time and contract workers (female only).”

The language is straightforward, the message unambiguous. For anyone passing by it might seem like a routine hiring notice — until the parentheses come into focus.

Inside, amid neatly arranged racks of homeware, clothing, and cosmetics, female staff bustle between customers, folding merchandise and restocking shelves. There is no male employee in sight.

When approached, the store owner — who is not of Jamaican descent — declined to speak with the Jamaica Observer on the hiring policy. But one of the clerks was more candid.

“Dem hire man?” she asked a colleague with a puzzled look on her face. “I never see no man working in here before except for the male owners.”

Her assumptions were confirmed. “Dem nuh hire male workers at all,” the co-worker said. “They don’t like lifting the boxes, always a stop, stop from work and love complain ’bout everything.”

She explained that any heavy lifting is done by one of the male family co-owners of the business. The tasks assigned to hired staff were, perhaps in the employer’s eyes, not worth the hassle when filled by young Jamaican men.

This isn’t an isolated occurrence.

At an agricultural operation spanning hundreds of acres — also managed by an individual not native to Jamaica — similar sentiments are expressed about male employees. The company, which has ambitious plans for both the domestic and export markets, reported difficulty in retaining male workers.

“They just don’t want to work,” the farm manager said. “They stop coming to work for silly excuses, smoke during working hours, and show a lazy attitude on the job.”

He noted that female workers were more consistent. “The women, especially the ones who are mothers, come with a different mindset, and I prefer to hire them.”

These statements, while perhaps anecdotal, represent a deeper issue in Jamaica’s labour landscape — one where gender stereotypes, class bias, and economic vulnerability intersect, experts say. Behind these hiring decisions lies a complex narrative about what it means to be employable, responsible, and productive in Jamaica.

Social epidemiologist and researcher Dr Paul Bourne frames the issue in generational terms. In a recent interview with the Business Observer, he explained that, for many males, low-wage employment feels demeaning, especially when tied to strict oversight and rigid expectations.

“Males who are economically marginalised would rather stay home and beg than work at these low wages,” he said.

In that light, the preference for female employees becomes more than a gender issue. Some argue it reflects the fragility of Jamaica’s workforce, the uneven access to training, and the psychological scars of growing up without structure.

Dr Herbert Gayle, social anthropologist and head of Fathers’ Inc, warns against normalising the description of these youth as “lazy” individuals.

“It’s not complicated. Males are naturally born to be higher producers than females — meaning they don’t get pregnant; they don’t take maternity leave; they are stronger and have more energy, they take fewer bathroom breaks and just take less time off in general,” he said.

“And so, it cannot be normal for a store owner to put up a sign that they only want female workers. That tells us where we reach as a society. This is a crisis. The sign is the indicator of the problem — not the individuals putting it up — and we have to go at the problem,” he said.

According to Dr Gayle, Jamaican males have long been underserved by the systems that should support them. Instead, he argues that much of the resources are channelled toward females, both inside and outside the household.

“The system is failing everyone,” Dr Gayle posited. “Society has trained tonnes and tonnes of women, but they are still underemployed — sometimes the best they can find is a BPO [business process outsourcing] job. And the boys, the boys are not trained at all, yet we expect so much more from them.”

He used statistics to support his claim. According to Gayle, families demand three times more support from boys than girls in economically struggling homes — down from five times more in 1996.

“Take, for example, Nicholas and Nickiesha grow up in the same home. Nickiesha goes to school and is trained. Nicholas isn’t. But the family still turns to Nicholas for help…where him must get it from? That is what is pushing our boys into crime,” he argued.

Gayle reasoned that while patriarchal values, symbols and status are upheld in Jamaica, males are not trained for patriarchy.

“A young man will see a ‘We are hiring’ sign on a retail store, but if he goes there he’s not going to produce — and all of it goes back to the patriarchal system. But if we take these boys and train them, you will see the difference. Not one thing wrong with them, they just need the help,” he explained.

Wayne Chen, president of the Jamaica Employers’ Federation, takes a more tempered view.

“You’re not supposed to discriminate based on gender,” he affirms. “And I don’t think it’s a big, big issue in Jamaica because at the end of the day, no business is going to thrive if it is not hiring based on merit.”

However, he has pushed back against the idea that systemic resource inequality is to blame for male underachievement.

“The thing in Jamaica is that every child in secondary school, regardless of whether you’re at a non-traditional, whether you’re in Wait-A-Bit, Trelawny, or you’re in upper St Andrew, the State allocation is the same. It doesn’t change. What changes, and when we say resources, is the family resource, the community resource, the PTA. It’s the level of interest that the household and the community take in the success of that child.”

Chen acknowledges that while the formal support may be equitable, informal and familial disparities create vastly different outcomes. “Now, as I pointed out earlier, the absence of a male role model in the home puts the boys at a disadvantage relative to the girls right away.”

This nuanced view adds complexity to Dr Gayle’s argument about systemic neglect, suggesting that while the State provides equal access, the outcomes are shaped by deeper social and familial dynamics.

Still, Chen concedes that perceptions drive decisions.

“Jamaica is a bit of an anomaly. It’s in the handful of countries in the world where female managers exceed male managers as a percentage in the workforce…it’s rooted in how our children are raised,” Chen said.

“Girls are more often tasked with household chores, looking after siblings. They develop discipline earlier; and so the majority of role models you see when you go to school, in the workplace, are women. The perception in Jamaica is that women tend to be more disciplined, more diligent and less troublesome than males.”

That perception is partly grounded in observable trends. Girls in Jamaica outperform boys at nearly every level of the education system. By the time students reach high school, national assessments such as the Primary Exit Profile and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exams reveal a clear advantage in favour of girls. At The University of the West Indies, women now make up nearly 80 per cent of enrolment.

“It’s a long-standing issue in Jamaica that perpetuates generation to generation; and it’s not to say that the girls are doing well and the boys are doing badly. How I would frame it is that the girls are doing well relative to the boys,” Chen said.

Bourne partly attributes the male underachievement to single-mother households.

“Most men in Jamaica are grown by their mothers only. You pattern what you grow to see. If all you see is your mother hustling, not going to work but finding means, then that’s the mindset you adopt. Hustlers are not disciplined people.”

He recounts a moment when his own son, newly employed at a drink manufacturing business, questioned why his employer asked him to carry out low-level tasks not in line with his primary duties.

“He said, ‘Daddy, they’re asking me to sweep up the place and that’s not my job.’ I told him, they’re testing you. They’re seeing if you’re going to show up, be consistent. Two weeks later, he got a promotion.”

Yet many young men never make it past the initial test. Bourne explains that men are highly motivated by money and power, and so the low-paying jobs offered by these retail stores are not attractive to them.

“The males are looking at what is going on, and they’re assessing what is happening, and they say it makes no sense. They’re going to work but they don’t see it as economically viable, so what does it profit them? Think about it; it doesn’t profit them, they don’t see it as making sense. They’d rather stay home and beg by choice, because it would be similar to you going to work and being abused, and belittled by employers, or being abused by your friend,” he told the Business Observer.

In a labour market increasingly reliant on soft skills, emotional regulation, and consistent discipline, the typical male journey — marked by fractured homes and social neglect — leaves many young men ill-prepared, according to Dr Gayle.

“Our patriarchal society doesn’t benefit the poor. Patriarchy requires income. People will quote the Bible and say the man is responsible for this and that, but that boy who is now a man was already disenfranchised because he didn’t have a father. His mother was the boss. There are very few men in these social settings in which the man was boss of the family.

“They see examples of what a man looks like — the businessman down the street, the politician, the don, the church leaders in some cases — and they see that they have tonnes of power, money. But these people aren’t directly associated with them…and that affects them. They lack a sense of now — in other words, they feel hopeless,” he reasoned.

One thing the experts all agree on is that the issue isn’t merely about hiring practices in retail stores or farms. It is about what those practices reveal. They point to the disconnection between expectations and preparation, between social structures and economic demands, between perception and lived experience.

“Everybody wants to look at the end. They all saying this and that — that all the youths know how to do is dig out them hand middle,” Gayle said. “But that’s how they find relief. Getting the girls pregnant, too, is part of his rescue, whether we believe it or not. Neuroscience says that people who are high risk have a higher probability to get the girl pregnant.”

“These are the coping mechanisms of the underserved, the overlooked, the untrained,” he continued.

All three reason that the path forward is neither quick nor simple. Chen sees promise in stronger family and community involvement. Dr Gayle believes it begins with resocialisation and targeted training. Meanwhile, Bourne argues that reform must be holistic.

“You have to grow the economy, improve the quality of education, and address other social issues. It’s not a simple matter,” Bourne said. “We need to teach our young men and women how to be forward thinkers.”

GAYLE… it cannot be normal for a store owner to put up a sign that they only want female workers