Men get lion's share of new jobs, women suffer most from public sector layoffs

[Starry Messenger]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/09/1052996/-Men-get-lions-share-of-new-jobs,-women-suffer-most-from-public-sectorlayoffs

Remember all the what-does-it-mean-what-can-be-done-about-it hand-wringing over the "mancession," the fact men had lost a much higher percentage of jobs in the recession than women? And that women were rapidly heading toward parity in numbers in the labor market? Well, it's over. In fact, it's been over for quite some time.

<snip>

The same thing happened after the 2001 recession. Men lost a higher proportion of jobs than women, but as the economy improved, they bridged the very temporary gender gap that the downturn had produced.

The recent public sector losses for women are especially telling. Women have taken two-thirds of the hits. Those lost jobs are more likely to have been better-paying union jobs than their private-sector counterparts. They have been heavily targeted by governments faced with revenue shortfalls caused by the recession and their failure to restructure taxes. However, ideology has played as big a role as economics, with right-wing politicians seeing the revenue crunch as a perfect opportunity to do what they've wanted to do for ages—weaken or demolish public sector unions, trim the work force and cut benefits of the workers who survive. That has hurt women big time.

Late last year, Entmacher said the reasons for men doing so much better than women in getting jobs since June 2009 is hard to ascertain: "It isn't as if male-dominated industries have suddenly and really rebounded." But she suspects that it has to do with the lingering belief going all the way back to the days of "Rosie the Riveter" that it's more important to put unemployed men back to work.

I thought this OP would probably fare better in here. I remember the "mancession" threads last year and the wildly overbilled "success" women were supposedly having in pushing men out of the labor force.

[JustAnotherGen]

1. More annoyed than angry at this . . .

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/09/education-five-times-more-important-gender-income/42253/


That's not surprising. But what may surprise the lay observer is how much more influential one of those factors--education--is than the others. The earning gap between the two extremes in level of education--those who attended only elementary school and those with professional degrees--is approximately $72,000, exhibiting five times the influence than the second most important determinant of income, gender. "Thus, from this simple evaluation of relative impact, it is clear that the demographic factors supplement, but do not displace education as a critical component in understanding variation in earnings," the report concludes. The chart below offers a snapshot of relative effects of education, gender, and race and ethnicity on income.

I'm posting this because . . . The three public sector women I know here in NJ that have lost their jobs since Chris Christie has taken office are all teachers with Master's Degrees.

I want to say The Atlantic had an article in summer of 2010 asking if men were necessary. It was very much oriented towards the concept that with the economy reset, men would not find safe harbor, public education was oriented towards girls, etc etc. Keep in mind - this is the same publication that the previous year applauded the woman who wrote Marry Him - The Case For Settling.

So we are supposed to pursue advanced degrees, be bread winners, suck it up when we lose our jobs, suck it up when the man gets hired first (without an advanced degree), AND marry the guy that knocked us out of the running for said job?

Some man, somewhere is doing the Snoopy Dance right now.

[BlueIris]

2. AWFUL.

And this should put to rest any of the "men are being disenfranchised right and left!" claims MSM wants us to believe.

[redqueen]

3. Aw, don't leave out the MRA activists here!

They're all too willing to support the MSM's efforts to maintain male privilege. We shouldn't ignore their sincere efforts to make sure women remain a disadvantaged group.

[iverglas]

4. in Canada things are considerably better

This is generally attributed to our more regulated economy and particularly banking system. The international organizations love us these days.

We have a new right-wing government we are just starting to take the hits from. For the last several years, we'd had minority Conservative govts. Now they have a majority (of seats in the House, although less than 40% of the popular vote). They are turning their eyes from unnecessary and expensive and ugly criminal law reforms to public sector employment.

I wondered whether anything was being said yet as regards women, and the first thing google got me (before I could select for pages in Canada) was from The Guardian re the UK:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/13/public-sector-job-cuts-women

This is from before the last UK election but is still interesting.

Public sector job cuts hit women first

With four in 10 working women in public sector jobs, redundancies will make a work-life balance even harder to attain

... So far men have been bigger losers in the recession job-loss stakes. This is not because women's jobs are inherently more secure – indeed the chances of losing your job are about the same for men and women in hard-hit sectors such as retail, manufacturing or finance. But because those sectors that have suffered the most redundancies employ more men than women, the net result has been more male job losses.

But the public sector is different. Big spending cuts and job losses here will hit women, as they are twice as likely as men to work in the public sector. Indeed four in 10 women work in public-sector occupations. This has been particularly important in areas hit hard by private-sector unemployment such as the North East, Yorkshire and Humber and the West Midlands. In these regions male unemployment is more than 10%, and many families will now depend on a public-sector woman's wage. If public-sector jobs are axed, many families could find themselves without anyone in work.

Women often work in the public sector because it offers relatively secure work, flexible working patterns and a chance to build up a decent income in retirement. The gender pay gap is smaller and the public sector offers more opportunities to combine a proper career with caring responsibilities. Spending cuts would inevitably threaten this – and thus set back the cause of gender equality.

Women's pensions would be hit particularly hard. Those public-sector pensions of tabloid fury go largely to women. Two thirds of current public-sector pensions are being built up by women. ...

More recently:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/dec/14/female-employment-high-childcare-costs

Female employment hit by public sector cuts and childcare costs

Retail industry and public sector cuts affect women in the jobs markets, says IPPR, as it proposes universal childcare

Public sector job cuts and high childcare costs will push up female unemployment in coming months, a thinktank warns before the release of the latest round of UK jobs data.

Unemployment among women is already at its highest level for more than two decades, at 1.09 million, and with jobs going in the public sector and retail industry it is expected to rise further. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) wants to bring the jobless number down with universal childcare, something it argues would pay for itself.

The IPPR said there would be a net return to the government of £20,050 (over four years), in terms of tax revenue minus the cost of childcare for every woman who returns to full-time employment after one year of maternity leave

At the moment, the employment rate of women with children in the UK is lower than most OECD countries – ranking 19th, the IPPR says. ...

Interestingly, I'm not finding anything about the situation in Canada -- but across the board payroll cuts have only recently been imposed on federal govt departments, so it will remain to be seen. My BFF is a fed govt worker and has learned that for her dept to meet the overall cut, her job is in jeopardy.

I don't imagine we should expect to escape this phenomenon.

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

5. We had layoffs and the only person in our group to get whacked was a fem/black engineer.

First off, female mechanical ngineers are pretty scarce. Female black engineers even moreso. She was also a very productive good engineer. I'm not just saying that either, she always got compliments about tackling tough problems. We probably had about 20+ engineers in our workgroup.

I have no clue how the company didn't get sued for laying off a (the only) black empoyee who was also a (the only) female engineer.