Gender Employment Equality Still a Few Yrs. Away
USA Today (September 3, 2009)-- Women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time, a historic reversal caused by long-term changes in women's roles and massive job losses for men during this recession. Women held 49.83% of the nation's 132 million jobs in June and they're gaining the vast majority of jobs in the few sectors of the economy that are growing, according to the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.That's a record high for a measure that's been growing steadily for decades and accelerating during the recession. At the current pace, women will become a majority of workers in October or November.
Center for American Progress -- Women are now half of workers on U.S. payrolls, according to USA Today. This is an important new trend in the U.S. economy and a stunning transformation from a generation ago. In 1970, women made up 43.8% of workers, while in July 2009 (the latest data available), women held 49.9% of all jobs.
Although women are now half of all workers, they are not half of workers in all kinds of jobs. Thus, while the news that women are half the workers is a marker on the long path toward equality, it is also a testimony about the current economic malaise.
MP: Actually the reports about women being a majority of workers, or even half of American workers is not quite accurate. It's partly true - if you look only at payroll employment (nonfarm wage and salary jobs), currently about 131 million workers, and ignore about 8 million workers who are included in the more comprehensive household employment data of about 139 million workers (current BLS data here, historical data here), which includes self-employed and agricultural workers.
According to the more comprehensive measure of employment from household data, there is still a 5.4% difference between male employment (52.7%) and female employment (47.3%). And although women's share of total jobs has increased, it's been fairly constant and gradual, increasing by only 1% over the 15-year period from 1995 (46.3% of total jobs) to 2009 (47.3% of total jobs).
I'm not sure this is really monumental in its significance, but is probably somewhat important in pointing out the difference between payroll employment and household data employment. If complete gender employment equality is somehow significant or important, it won't happen for a few more years at least, according to household survey employment measures.
2 Comments:
Yeah, well, if "gender equity" is somehow important, don't we need far more open support for all around sorts of employment?
I think we clearly need open encouragement for "Mr. Mom" type situations -- men should be the household operator and the wife the breadwinner in equal numbers, should they not? (and I point out that "Mr. Mom" is actually a faux example of this -- at the end of the movie, Teri Garr is back at home and Michael Keaton is back in the breadwinner position)
I think we also have to have a reversal of the military position of registering males for the draft until women have been registered in equal numbers... after all, if they aren't going to be drafted in equal numbers, what the hey?
And, as Warren Farrell long ago pointed out (emphasis mine):
"While we acknowledged the glass ceilings that kept women out of the top, we [have] ignored the glass floors that kept [them out of the bottom]. Thus the 'Jobs Rated Almanac' reveals that the majority of the 25 worst jobs 'happen to be' male dominated.
Clearly, we need to do things to push women into taking more of these massively sucky jobs.
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What? What? Maybe "Gender Equity" isn't quite so important after all!?!?
Hey, Whoodathunit?
Funny how "sexual equality" translates into "female superiority" when you actually look at what truly results, innit?
At the heart of this is something else Farrell pointed out:
What Feminism has contributed to women's options must be supported. But when Feminists suggest that God might be a She without [ever considering] that the Devil might also be female, they must be opposed.
So-called "feminists" concern themselves always and only with the disadvantages which society has put in the way of women. They never, ever, ever want to look at the advantages women get as a part of the society, or the related disadvantages men are always stuck with... because those demarcate a far more "equal" system was already in place before they started their caterwauling about the female-only side of the "unfairnesses" of the old system.
Mark,
Thank you for the balance.
Workforce participation for women in the U.S. is lower than amongst men (recently read that this figure is around 67% which is lower than Canada at 75%). Considering the major declines in unemployment in the construction industry, auto sector, etc. which are male dominated and highly susceptible to recession, wouldn't one expect that the present data in the middle of a major recession would skew any analysis of long term trends?
OBH,
Funny how "sexual equality" translates into "female superiority" when you actually look at what truly results, innit?
Agree with you there. The objective does not appear to be a level playing field.
Gender equity is utter nonsense. Each individual should be recompensed upon the basis of performance. As Margaret Thatcher once put it "We may be equal but we are not equivalent."
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