The "Man-Cession" Continues
According to Friday's BLS report (Table A-1, Household Data), the U.S. economy has lost 4.464 million jobs since Dec. 2007. Further analysis shows that 78% of the job losses (3.483 million) were jobs held by males, and 22% of the jobs lost (981,000) were jobs held by females (see top chart above). Of the 351,000 decline in February employment (household data), 90% of the job losses were male jobs (315,000), compared to a 37,000 job loss for females (10% of total).Further, the February unemployment rate for men was 8.8% vs. 7.3% for women, as the 1.5% male-female gap narrowed just slightly from the all-time historical record male-female jobless rate gap of 1.6% in January.
28 Comments:
Great blog!
I'm trying to do the rough math in my head based on the two graphs, but you might have the data already - what is the percentage of the labor force that is male vs. female?
It would also be interesting to dive a little deeper and see it by industry or occupation - if an industry reaches the bottom of its labor threshold (i.e. can't let anyone else go), you'd expect to see the numbers in terms of unemployment by gender eventually even out if the recession went on long enough.
-DL
Of course, since women are paid less than men in most cases it makes sense that you would cull the higher paid employees first. Duh
"Of course, since women are paid less than men in most cases it makes sense that you would cull the higher paid employees first. Duh"...
You of course have something credible to back this whine of your's up, right?
Even in a recession, some companies are hiring
Help wanted: pharmacists, engineers and nurses. Believe it or not, even some banks are hiring, at least for their technology teams. While the recession has claimed 4.4 million jobs, the economy has created others, many of them for highly trained and specialized professionals. More than 2 million jobs openings now exist across a range of industries, according to government data.
Job seekers beware, though. An average of nearly five people are competing for each opening. That's up sharply from a ratio of less than 2-to-1 in December 2007, when the recession was just starting and nearly 4 million openings existed. (there's a bit more)
1:
Yes,
Lookup Highlights of Women's Earnings, BLS Report 928.
Asshat
Well very good anon @ 3/09/2009 6:58 PM
Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2007
The difference between women’s and men’s earnings was largest among those aged 55 to 64, with women earning about 73 percent as much as men in this age group. By comparison, women earned 87 percent as much as men among workers 25 to 34 years old, and 92 percent as much among 16- to 24-year-olds...
Amazing! I think this is the first time you came up with something useful...
None the less in what I do in the airline business (where women get paid EXACTLY the same wage) its still criminal (but politically correct) that they are paid as much...
How is it where you work or do you have a job?
I make a very good living, thank you.
Your attitude is a reflection of why I only fly American flag carriers when there is no alternative. Besides the Asian flight attendants (particularly on Singapore Airlines) are very beautiful.
Does anyone have data focusing on the number of women graduating college as compared to men? If I remember correctly, over the last decade or so women have had a higher graduation rate, which may indicate that the types of jobs being laid off are more skilled labor and production oriented than professionals.
Dan
Here's a brief article from Columbia that should give a broad view.
http://iserp.columbia.edu/news/articles/female-advantage-college
When dealing with the ration of male/female pay, simply looking at the overall pay data is interesting, but not the whole picture. What is more important in this case is the pay ratios for comparable work.
Many women still spend part of their potential career at home caring for children, leading to fewer promotions and advances within the company ranks. Many also forgo higher education to raise their children, meaning they receive lower paying jobs.
Studies generally show that women and men in the same job earn generally the same money. To back up a previous poster, its not so much that women "receive" lower paying jobs (as if they are passive victims of others), but instead make very rational choices to (i) have/raise children in ways that they understand could impact their career and (ii) take jobs that are generally more secure but less prone to garnering financial upside. On the latter, many studies have shown that women make consious choices to take jobs that pay less, but that are more flexible to lifestyle and have more job security. I would posit that the data reported in this post is an indication of this: men take higher risk jobs that can be percieved to pay more, and women take more secure jobs. At present, the high risk jobs will be disproportionally lost. It would be interesting to see what the baselines are regarding the male/female makeup of the workforce to compare against the presented data to see if this seems to be the case.
Interestingly, those with a political agenda still cling to the aggregate US population data to show a disparity of pay persists, when most studies that truly drill down on the issue have shown that women and men are on parity for similar positions with similar skills. Bottom line: women have already won the pay disparity battle in the US, and thankfully so. Dissimilar pay for similar work and skills is a blight that is very thankfully mostly behind us.
>>>>>Studies generally show that women and men in the same job earn generally the same money.
It's usually found to be within a percentage point of being equal when you factor out career breaks for kids, time served, different education levels. Same job, same credentials, <1% variation.
- an employment litigator
Dissimilar pay for similar work and skills is a blight that is very thankfully mostly behind us.
The "politically motivated" don't care. I'm a single, childless woman in a volatile technical profession, and I get a lot of grief from women working part-time or in pink-collar jobs because (when I'm working...) I get paid more than they do. When I tell them they too could be making better money if they'd taken a different college major or stopped insisting on leaving the office at 3:30 sharp, or took six-month contracts with no guarantee of permanent employment, they tell me I'm a misogynist. Apparently they deserve more pay simply for being women.
So, I see the political feminists pushing this "equal pay for women" thing until we've achieved complete socialism--all work receives more or less equal pay, regardless of skill or education necessary to perform it, regardless of hours worked.
I also second Dean_L's comment about wanting to see the numbers broken down by industry and occupation. I don't think there are a lot of 4K teachers or social workers (predominantly female) being laid off...but plenty of organizations are laying off engineers (the AP says they're "in demand" but there's still a glut of supply in my specialty...).
If women took the same career paths as men, they would earn the same on average. The simple fact is that more women than men take up careers in certain professions that earn less money (e.g. teaching) than other careers available to people of similar educational achievement and skills. Even in law firms, where women make the same as men as associates, women sometimes will make less money voluntarily so as to work part-time to raise their children - and in fact, law firms offer this "alternative career option" in order to retain women (a disproportionate number of whom leave big-firm private practice to raise their children, leaving the partnerships male-dominated despite the firms' best efforts).
I am frankly tired of hearing the mantra that differences in average pay is tantamount to sexism. Until women become just like men (or vice versa) in their career choices, they will continue to earn less on average.
It doesn't need to be politicized. Should women say: "I'll just raise the female children, and the male children can fend for themselves." I suppose that a'hole who loves them beautiful asian "girls" on Singapore Airlines (as I am sure they love his potbellied, balding self) doesn't believe that we should have children. After all, we don't need any more generations to work and build.
It is funny to see how men react now that women are the new power in society. Didn't bother those same men when things were reversed.
I would be interested in seeing how many of these women keeping their jobs are self employed.
There's a good article on self employment in City Journal: http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_1_self-employment.html
Lots of women do it for the same reason I do -- they don't want to leave their kids. And there definitely can be more money.
For the past two years or so I have made 6 figures. This year, I'll be happy if I make a quarter as much as last year.
Still, technically I'm working.
And if I'd kept my real job I would be facing layoff without having the padding of a six figure "salary" for the past two years.
The reasons for the gender gap in earnings are not as simple as has been suggested here. I have written a three-part series on them, available at echidne-of-the-snakes.com.
anony @12:56
It is my impression that self-employment is not well represented in this sort of statistic. I am told the phone survey is a better measure.
Congrats on your successes.
echidne
I got as far as your first ad hominem before stopping. Unfortunately that was before any content was displayed.
I remember watching women's groups on CNBC sounding the alarm in the initial phase of this recession on the disproportionate impact the economic downturn supposedly had on women. I thought then that it was far off from what i've observed. Now that the data has confirmed that this recession has in fact disproportinoaly affected men, it's amazing to see how women's attitudes recession have suddenly changed form alarm to a feminist celebration.
Many of today's feminists have more in common with yesterday's sexists. Today's men are experientially closer to their mothers than today's women are to yesterday's victims. Indeed, in NY and Texas, and many metropolitan cities, younger women are earning more than younger men, with men earning 80-90% of every dollar that younger women earn. This new "trend" however is "different" from the old trend where older men earned more than older women.
The ideology of sexism is alive and well, but it has undergone a sex change .
Rising numbers of unemployed men is not good for a society or a country, period. Do the two mass shootings today prove out that statement? Absolutely. Today's feminazi wimmin can continue to cry and moan about disparities, but when the violence erupts and increases, they're the losers. They can't jump as high, run as fast, or throw as hard a punch as a man. That's biology, girls...deal with it.
Wymyn earn 78% as much as men do only because they spend 22% of their billable hours scheming how to make men extinct. When the last man leaves (by the back door) the "yay" chorus will no more than have died down when The Wymyn In Charge say "Uh-oh. How'd we do that, again?"
Enemy. Enemy. You've worked so hard, so long to make yourselves enemies, wy be the least bit shocked when men finally get the idea? Preach it triumphal, sister, you horrid haggard old harridans. Sweet ashes on your tongue. Barren, dead souls.
Men comprise the overwhelming majority in the construction trades. We all know that homebuilding has been hammered, as well as home improvement, but overall construction has also been hit hard. there's one cause on the mismatch.
With the UAW car companies, males also dominate the production and skilled trades. This also applies to parts suppliers. Of course, the auto makers and their suppliers have laid off.
Males are far more prevalent in most factory jobs and really dominate such skilled trades as machinists who set and supply tooling for factories. Manufacturing jobs have been hit, thus reducing needs for machine tools - a double whammy for men.
There are many other reason, but I've named a few.
A lot of these feminists are employed based on the idea of sexism. If they were to accept reality they'd be unemployed. Far better to keep up the lies and keep the money rolling in, even if it sours male/female relations and wastes societal resources on combatting non-existent problems.
My girlfriend works in what's typically considered a "male" job by being an apprentice electrician.
Lots of people are struggling in that field and she's been lucky if she ends up working two or three days a week.
Men generally work longer hours, work in more dangerous professions, and are more likely to work in physically demanding jobs, all of which pay a premium to whoever fills them. If you take any age cohort, women WILL NEVER make as much, on average, because of these facts. Discrimination has nothing to do with it. Biology might, don't you think?
Liberal solution: ban biology.
Women are NOT paid less than men.
I repeat : Woman are NOT paid less than men.
That lie is thoroughly debunked in Myth #1 here.
And this is just wages. If you count alimony and 'child support', women are taking away a big chunk of what men earn too.
The most noxious thing about the continued feminist grievance-peddling over the difference in pay is that it sends the implicit message that all those other things women chose to do instead of maximizing their income aren't worthy of appreciation.
In so many ways, women are the glue that holds civilization together. Their attention to and facility with child care is but one example. I think it was P.J. O'Roarke who posed the riddle/joke:
Q: "How often does a man clean his apartment?"
A: "Once per girlfriend."
Here's a statistic I think is more enlightening that the income numbers: Despite earning less than men, women own a majority of everything there is to own. How can that be? I think it has something to do with the fact that one of the principle reasons men care to earn anything is so they can give it to women.
To sum up, vive la difference!
I like how long it took before someone (who posted as Anonymous) pointed out that the economic downturn is also hitting sectors where men are most likely to be employed, and which hold oftentimes more "high-paying" jobs per input.
One thing is that as "work" because increasingly less about physical labor/sheer strength and more about tolerance for agonizing boredom, repetition, and social interaction with a gender-neutral (read: manners defined by feminism) bent, women will increasingly be employable in fields that are more stable in their employment, i.e. service, non-technical computer (going back to the differences in degrees/focus areas) services, call centers, light industry, etc.
Women have distinct advantages as employees. Women who have worked for me are much less likely to stand up to me (their superior) in the course of my management career. A male employee will tell me 'no' now and then. A female employee seldom will tell me 'no.'
For all the talk of 'balancing' home and family, the fact is that most women who have worked for me will much sooner tell their husband to take a hike than they will tell me to take a hike. She sacrifices him for me, consistently.
They will sacrifice their children's needs in favor of my needs, also.
In fact, my whims are more important to them than their husband's or children's needs.
For all the self serving bluster, I'm the most important man in the lives of the women who work for me. Not their husbands. Not their children. It's me.
I admit, I like that quality in an employee.
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