How has the current recession affected men and women in the workforce?
Statistics clearly indicate that the prolonged recession has disproportionately hurt more men than women. It comes as no surprise that job loss in key industries such as manufacturing and construction are greater since men make up a higher percentage of the workforce. On the other hand, women work positions in the more downsize-resistant sectors like education and health care. The data clearly confirms that in today’s great recession, men have had a higher unemployment rate than women for the last 32 consecutive months.
The conundrum lies in the fact that the majority of jobs women are maintaining and/or securing are jobs that pay less than the jobs being eliminated for men. “A lot of jobs that men have lost in fields like manufacturing were good paying or union jobs with great health care plans,” says Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project. “The jobs women have and are supporting their families with are not necessarily as good.”
Since the 1970s, women have taken up a much larger share of the work force. As of June 2009 (the latest month for which these figures are available), women held 49.83 percent of all nonfarm payroll jobs (NY Times Economix). “Given how stark and concentrated the job losses are among men, and that women represented a high proportion of the labor force in the beginning of this recession, women are now bearing the burden (or the opportunity, one could say) of being breadwinners,” says Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress.
This means that women may be more secure in their jobs, but will find it more challenging to support a family. Statistics show that women work fewer overall hours than men and are more likely to be in part-time jobs without health insurance or unemployment insurance. And when it comes to full-time jobs, women earn 20% less, on average, than men in comparable positions.
The bottom line is that a prolonged recession will have significant societal consequences.
- Household budgets will shift and belt-tightening will continue
- Generational habitation will increase where two and three generations will cohabitate in a single dwelling to pool resources and lower expenses
- Women will continue to enter and even dominate (over 50%) the workforce
- Multiple jobs / streams of income by both men and women will replace the single income model of the past; job security won’t return any time soon, if ever
- Entrepreneurialism will emerge as a viable option; even as a part-time secondary source of income
The recession is more about the affect that change has on families and lifestyles rather than gender statistics (which gender is the so-called bread winner). As we navigate through uncharted economic waters driven by outsourcing, technology replacing labor, and economic turbulence including record levels of federal, state and personal debt, not to mention political divisiveness that paralyzes a cohesive national response to these challenges, it may be, for the foreseeable future, everyone for him / herself. And those who fair best will be those who are most resourceful, resilient, and resolute.