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It’s Official: Women Now Workforce Majority

By Richard Whitmire — February 06, 2010 1 min read
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Economists have been saying this for months, but the government has made it official, as described in this New York Times article.

From the article:

As in previous recessions, male workers have borne the brunt of the job losses in the last two years. Since the recession began in December 2007, men have lost 7.4 million jobs on net, whereas women have lost 3.9 million jobs. In other words, both sexes are worse off than they were before the downturn, but men have suffered more. The types of jobs held by men and women help explain the shift. Men are more likely to work in industries like manufacturing, which rise and fall with the economic cycle. Women are more likely to work in government, health care and education, among the safest categories in a downturn. Health care employment has been among the strongest of any type during the recession.

What the article doesn’t get into is the longer-term trend that will last beyond the “man-cession,” which is the education gap between men and women. Not only will that make women more employable but it will disrupt traditional relationships, with more college-educated single women having to decide whether they will “marry down.”

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