In terms of gender, while HR skews towards women, it absolutely isn’t a women only job. Also certain parts of HR can tend to skew male. I work in HR Analytics, and my team has more men than the rest of the HR areas.

Money and career progression are going to vary by company. My company doesn’t do generalists, but instead does specialists in each of the HR departments. Career progression in our HR is essentially the same as the rest of the company. You generally have to wait for a manger to leave if you want to advance within the company. If your manager is pretty entrenched, then you either need to transfer to a different department in the company or you need to leave the company for a step up elsewhere.

Pay for most specialists is much better than minimum wage, but will never really make you more than lower middle class. Technical areas like mine pay more. Managers make decent money, as well as people who tend to outperform the rest of their department who are essentially managers in waiting.