In early July, the Pew Research Center released a study titled "In Two Years of Economic Recovery, Women Lost Jobs, Men Found Them," with the opening statement:
"The sluggish recovery from the Great Recession has been better for men than for women. From the end of the recession in June 2009 through May 2011, men gained 768,000 jobs and lowered their unemployment rate by 1.1 percentage points to 9.5%. Women, by contrast, lost 218,000 jobs during the same period, and their unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage points to 8.5%.These post-recession employment trends are a sharp turnabout from the gender patterns that prevailed during the recession itself, when men lost more than twice as many jobs as women. Men accounted for 5.4 million, or 71%, of the 7.5 million jobs that disappeared from the U.S. economy from December 2007 through June 2009. Employment trends during the recovery have favored men over women in all but one of the 16 major sectors of the economy."
A flurry of news reports followed, including on the front page of the Washington Post ("Men, hit hardest in recession, are getting work faster than women"), at CNN Money ("Was the 'mancession' just a mirage?"), and most recently last Friday by Andrew Sullivan (Mancession Replaced with Hecovery"), who cites the Good Business blog saying that men "have gained 805,000 jobs, but women have lost a total of 281,000" since the recession ended.
Most of the news reports seemed to have missed this key paragraph in the Pew Center report (emphasis added):
"Although the latest trends in employment are working in favor of men, the full period of the recession and the recovery has set men back more than women. From December 2007 to May 2011, the employment of men has decreased from 70.7 million to 66.1 million, or by 4.6 million. For women, employment has fallen from 67.3 million to 64.9 million, or by 2.4 million. Thus, while men have taken an early lead in the recovery, they still have far more ground to cover than women to return to pre-recession employment levels."
Most of the news reports seemed to have missed this key paragraph in the Pew Center report (emphasis added):
"Although the latest trends in employment are working in favor of men, the full period of the recession and the recovery has set men back more than women. From December 2007 to May 2011, the employment of men has decreased from 70.7 million to 66.1 million, or by 4.6 million. For women, employment has fallen from 67.3 million to 64.9 million, or by 2.4 million. Thus, while men have taken an early lead in the recovery, they still have far more ground to cover than women to return to pre-recession employment levels."
MP: The chart above helps to graphically illustrate the paragraph above by showing monthly employment levels for men and women from January 2002 to June 2011. Although it's true that men have made greater employment gains since the recession ended, it's also true that men are still much worse off than women when we consider the entire period from January 2008 to June 2011. The current number of payroll jobs in the U.S. (131 million) is about 7 million jobs below the peak of 138 million jobs in January of 2008 when the recession was first starting. Of the 7 million jobs lost since 2008, men have lost 4.6 million or 65% of the total, compared to 2.4 million fewer jobs for women, or 35% of the total.
Bottom Line: Despite the recent job gains for men since early 2010, the Great Recession has still had a disproportionately and significantly negative effect on men compared to women, and it's not even close: For every 100 jobs lost by women since January 2008, men have lost 192 jobs, so it's still very much of a "mancession," despite the recent "hecovery."
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