A pink-collar worker is employed in a job traditionally viewed as a female occupation. These traditional views date back to the first half of the twentieth century, during the Industrial Revolution. The term is formed analogically to blue-collar worker and white-collar worker, terms that were commonly equated with men in the workforce who occupied jobs demanding more manual labor or more education, respectively. The term originally arose to distinguish pink collar jobs from white collar jobs, and to distinguish women in roles which did not require as much professional training, nor carry equal pay or prestige.
Babysitters, hairdressers, nannies, nurses, receptionists, librarians, grade-school teachers and waitresses, among others, are considered to be pink collar occupations.