Sunday, June 20, 2010

Happy Father's Day: It's Still a Mancession

The top two charts above display monthly jobless rates by gender, and the third chart displays employment levels by gender, with the following key points:

1. Between 2002 and 2007, jobless rates were roughly equal by gender, except during the "jobless recovery" of 2002-2003 when male unemployment exceeded female unemployment, but never by more than 0.9% (July 2003).   

2. Male unemployment reached 11.4% in October 2009, a record all-time postwar jobless rate high for men, exceeding the previous record high of 11.2% in December 1982.

3.  Female unemployment is currently at 8.8%, and has been at that level for four out of the last eight months, but never higher.  That's far below the record-high female jobless rate of 10.4% set in December 1982.  

4. The May 2010 male-female jobless rate gap of 1.7% (10.5% male vs. 8.8% female) is down from the postwar record-high gap of 2.7% last August, but is still very high by historical standards.  During (or following) the three previous recessions (1981-82, 1990-91, 2001), the peak male-female jobless rate gap averaged about 1%, and never exceeded 1.2% (April 1983).   

5. During the 1970s, the female unemployment rate was generally higher than the male rate, and jobless rate gaps exceeded 2% during recessions, but in favor of men (see middle chart). 

6. Between December 2007 and December 2009, household employment fell by almost 8.38 million jobs, and 68.5% of those were jobs held by men (5.74 million) and 31.5% were jobs held by women (2.64 million).  During this two-year period, 217 men lost their jobs for every 100 women who lost jobs. 

Read more here about The Great Mancession of 2008-2009 (and it's still not yet over).

6 Comments:

At 6/20/2010 2:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Building...problem solving...both things the guys like to do. It's hard to build and problem solve when no one knows what will be the next big thing ten years from now.
Whereas, health care? Most of us will still need this. But before the girls get excited about "girls rule" there might not be money to pay for all that health care if no one is building and problem solving.

 
At 6/20/2010 7:00 PM, Blogger bix1951 said...

What if the numbers take into account educational attainment?
You have said that people with college degrees have lower unemployment. You have also said that women now are getting more degrees than men.

 
At 6/20/2010 11:01 PM, Anonymous Lyle said...

In 35% of dual professional couples the woman makes more than the man. By 2024 it will be over half. Story in the Daily Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/7842041/Women-professionals-to-earn-more-than-men-by-2024.html

Note that part of this is men deciding that the 70 hour a week career track is not for them.

 
At 6/21/2010 1:53 AM, Anonymous Gooshie said...

Anon 2.46 pm
Where do you come from.
The girls already rule and there is no sign of any change anywhere in sight this century.

 
At 6/21/2010 1:54 AM, Anonymous Gooshie said...

Anon 2.46 pm
Where do you come from.
The girls already rule and there is no sign of any change anywhere in sight this century.

 
At 6/21/2010 8:00 AM, Anonymous morganovich said...

a great deal of the mancession likely has to do with the wipe out in the home building business.

CR had an excellent article about housing starts and unemployment over the weekend calculating that the peak R2 of housing starts and unemployment at 16 months, meaning we could be a year off the meaningful turn in employment and given the high unit inventory, perhaps longer if starts don't pick up.

http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/06/housing-starts-and-unemployment-rate.html

 

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