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Recovery Leaves Women Behind
Recession hurt male-dominated sectors, but hiring is lagging for women
It became known as the "mancession" because the recent downturn battered industries dominated by men.
But the economic battle of the sexes has taken a turn. While the nation's nascent recovery has been slow and bumpy for just about everyone, it has been almost nonexistent for women.
Of the 1.3 million jobs gained in the U.S. in the past year, 1.1 million — nearly 90 percent — went to men, Department of Labor statistics show. Women gained just 149,000 jobs during that time. If you count jobs since the recovery officially started in July 2009, men gained more than 600,000 jobs while women lost 300,000, the figures show.
"The recovery is really not happening for women at all," said Joan Entmacher, vice president for family economic security at the National Women's Law Center in Washington. "It's a slow recovery overall, but it's really leaving women behind."
Some of the disproportionate gains by men were expected because women lost far fewer jobs during the recession, but economists say that doesn't fully explain the trend. Economists point out that public sector jobs more likely to be held by women are disappearing. And some hypothesize that jobless men have been making inroads in sectors traditionally dominated by women.
But for women who have struggled for their place in the American work force — from Rosie the Riveter to Carol Bartz, the Yahoo CEO ranked as the highest-paid woman in the U.S. — this is another painful chapter.
For Annie McLhinney-Cochran, 52, of Havre de Grace, the hunt for a new job has gone nowhere for three years. She recently left San Diego to relocate to Maryland with her husband, who had lost a construction job. She has years of marketing and public relations experience and was convinced her prospects would improve on the East Coast.
"Never has it been this tough," she said. "I think women our age, those 50 on up and getting ready to retire, are the ones getting hit the most."
In San Diego, "we were just kind of making it. Some friends and family have helped. My husband had a few odd jobs. I was one of those people hanging on and hanging on," said McLhinney-Cochran. "It's an awful situation, and I don't see a lot of relief."
While women account for roughly half of the work force, a White House report released this month showed persistent pay gaps between men and women at all levels of education, with women earning about 75 percent as much as their male colleagues. Older female workers face greater pay disparity than their younger counterparts — as 25- to 34-year-olds earn 89 percent as much as men, according to the 2009 statistics.
As the nation begins to crawl out of the deep recession, women are regaining jobs at a much slower pace than they lost them. Women accounted for one of every three lost jobs in the recession, but they're filling just one in every 10 jobs added. And unemployment for women is on the rise.
"It's very frightening because long-term unemployment has worsened," Entmacher said. "It's also alarming because women make up half the labor force and women's wages are so much bigger a piece of the family budget. This is a real crisis for families, especially those headed by women."
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Show AllWHAT FUCKING RECOVERY????????????????????????
what a bunch of double speak and crapola crap...oh, baltimore sun, figures...
BTW, they count entrance into the military, part-time jobs, all the JET, EW, SCSEP, etc positions and all of those are minimum wage in a job search program. They aren't really working, they're hanging in some non-profit or gov't office hoping to find a job, but they get paid about 20 hrs a week and the DOL counts it as a real job...horse shit. Manure and more. If you people are buying this bunch of crap then you are dumber than rocks. It's probably a right wing attempt to get the women off the war thing, or the union thing, or...sorry, the broads have wised up to the male dominated bull shit being slung at them like a limp dick. We all need to stand up and forget our gender, sexual preference, voting party, state, basketball team, vege-vegan-meater, religion, whatever, and start fighting the despicable system destroying our democracy a chip at a time.
Rachel Maddow has expressed that Michigan is going into a full tilt dictatorship because of what the governor is doing. It is a travesty.
Damn right we have to get over "our gender, sexual preference, voting party, state, basketball team, vege-vegan-meater, religion, whatever" and recognize that we all all working people (if we can get a job) and the 'full tilt dictatorship" is one of the top 1% of the richest people in our nation. With their great wealth (made on the backs of the working people) they have taken over our government with 'donations' to our elected officials. They are in control of the media system and best of all, for them, they don't have to pay taxes---no! they have sharp attorneys and financial advisers that help them avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
So our corrupt government gives trillions of the taxes taken from the working people and give it to the banksters on Wall St and plan austerity for the working people. We lose our jobs, our pensions, our health care, our homes and our children get to go into the Army to protect our "national interests" -- those national interests do not include jobs, education and health care for the people and protection of our environment.
Wake up people. It is almost too late. How much more are you going to take before you get mad and fight back?
This is probably the most completely bogus article I've ever seen on ABC News in 20 years.
MOST OF THE NEW JOBS ARE FOR WOMEN. NURSES AIDS, HEALTH CARE JOBS, 90% OF THAT IS WOMEN.
THE STIMULUS JOBS AREN'T EVEN NEW JOBS THAT MONEY WENT TO ROAD WORKERS AND JUNK AND THEY CALLED IT A NEW FREAKING JOB, WHEN ALL THEY WERE DOING WAS PAVING A ROAD THEY ALREADY PAVED.
My father once told me that back during the depression, my grandmother, as a teacher, was their primary breadwinner. She seemed to teach in a different school almost every year, and the reason for this was that if there was a qualified man who needed a job, she would be replaced the next year. It was considered that the men were the main income for the family, and therefore, a woman could be replaced without hurting the family. My grandfather worked sporadically, sometimes in a nearby mine, and for a while he supervised a CCC work crew. At other times, they farmed, and my dad said that there were a couple of years when their net income was less than $100. Much of what they needed was obtained by bartering what they could produce on the farm. My aunt, who is a wonderful cook, started cooking the family meals when she was about 12, because my grandmother was helping my grandfather and my dad in the fields.
This article is so true. I'm one of the millions of (usually middle-aged) women booted out of a professional position and now can't find a decent job. A resume' packed with education and experience is blithely ignored.
The Obama administration and Congress have completely ignored this growing inequity. We desparately need CCC-type programs for mature workers and women.
-a soon-to-be 99 weeker...
Oh the huge manatee!
The Boomer women aren't instantly being given the best job instantly for top dollar! It's the evil men and anti-feminists holding them down!
Really? No, wait, really? Let's sum up this part:
For Annie McLhinney-Cochran, 52, of Havre de Grace.....She has years of marketing and public relations experience...
There are severe shortages in engineering and sciences and agriculture. I'm sorry, and I hate to sound like some free marketer Republican, because I'm really really not, but at some point, even the most liberal amoung us have got to realize there are too many of folks like these and too few in the disciplines that are going to save us. She can't find a job in marketing? Aw, too bad...that means there's just one less person trying to sell us shit we don't need.
The Boomers need to retire. The millions of them with "soft" skills like marketing and performance consulting and hedge fund management just need to go. Science and engineering are the solutions to environmental, economic and technical problems, not lawyers and salesmen.
The sooner we get away from "who is right" and get to "what is right" this country, and the world will start to be a pretty good place for all.
Well I agree that PR & Marketing is one of the more bullshit professions in the universe. Scott Adams renders that much more eloquently than you or I might. Just read a few chapters into THe Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.
PR is a damaging disease (Read "Toxic Sludge is Good For You"), but it is a disease that is allowed to exist because it serves the purposes of the capitalist oligarchy.
"Bankers" not "Boomers" are to blame for the current crisis, along with the Western Oil Companies and the Likudniks.
The stage setting for the whole shitstorm is a "secret" militarist imperialist murder/torture state with hundreds of tendrils and a festering occupation war zone that is hell bent on destroying muslim societies and stealing their resources.
Obama is the ghoulish stage director, dressed in full gothic tophat, but the white gloves are drenched in blood.
And we the audience are prey & victim.
And the ticket sales have never looked so good
The Producers are pleased.
Welcome back my friend to the show that never ends..
Seems I was beaten to it. The second I read "She has years of marketing and public relations experience" - honestly. Perhaps if she did something useful and productive for a living? If she built something, made something, grew something?