Unprecedented Gender Disparity in Labor Market

The two charts featured here further put the "mancession" into perspective, and demonstrate how men have been significantly and disproportionately adversely affected by the recession. The chart above shows that the August jobless rate for men of 10.9% is almost 5.5% above the post-WWII average of 5.43% for males, and is just 0.20% below the historical record high of 11.2% for men in 1982.

In contrast, women are doing much better compared to the historical average jobless rate for females and the post WW-II peak. The chart below shows that the 8.2% August unemployment rate for women is 2.2% above the 6% average since 1948, and a full 4.2 percentage points below the maximum jobless rate of 10.4% in 1982.

This analysis further demonstrates that the severity of the most recent recession fell disproportionately on men, who have experienced much greater job losses and significantly higher jobless rates than women. Futher, this gender disparity in favor of women is historically unprecedented.