NYT: Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy

[babylonsister]

Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy
Erol Reyal for The New York Times

Lisa Craig, standing, volunteers at the Milwaukee office of 9to5, National Association of Working Women. She hopes to draw a modest salary soon as a community intern.

By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Published: July 22, 2008


Across the country, women in their prime earning years, struggling with an unfriendly economy, are retreating from the work force, either permanently or for long stretches.

They had piled into jobs in growing numbers since the 1960s. But that stopped happening this decade, and as the nearly seven-year-old recovery gives way to hard times, the retreat is likely to accelerate.

Indeed, for the first time since the women’s movement came to life, an economic recovery has come and gone, and the percentage of women at work has fallen, not risen, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Each of the seven previous recoveries since 1960 ended with a greater percentage of women at work than when it began.

When economists first started noticing this trend two or three years ago, many suggested that the pullback from paid employment was a matter of the women themselves deciding to stay home — to raise children or because their husbands were doing well or because, more than men, they felt committed to running their households.

But now, a different explanation is turning up in government data, in the research of a few economists and in a Congressional study, to be released Tuesday, that follows the women’s story through the end of 2007.

After moving into virtually every occupation, women are being afflicted on a large scale by the same troubles as men: downturns, layoffs, outsourcing, stagnant wages or the discouraging prospect of an outright pay cut. And they are responding as men have, by dropping out or disappearing for a while.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/business/22jobs.html?ref=todayspaper

[annabanana]

1. We're not getting the *worst* of it anymore?

:woohoo:

[Demeter]

2. "Equal Treatment"! What Nirvana!

Time for good government, ladies.

[Recursion]

3. Errr

The point was in previous downturns, women have -- unlike men -- come out of them better off in aggregate. Now women and men are worse off.

[Demeter]

4. An Analysis: A Rat Race Less Rosy

http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=1424


On the front page of The New York Times Tuesday was a very misleading headline. “Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy” at first said to me that perhaps the gender gap in wages had closed. Nope. According to data released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women still earn less than 80 cents for every dollar that men do in similar occupations. The New York Times article merely shows that women are dropping out of the workforce at such a rate that the number entering the workforce is actually in decline for the first time since the Women’s Lib movement.
The big difference now, the article says, is that women are less likely to accept a pay cut, and instead drop out of the rat race entirely. As a woman who recently dropped out of the job market to go to graduate school, I can commiserate.

The article blames the poor economy, which certainly has something to do with it. But I’d also posit that wages play a role. If a family has to choose one member to drop out of the workforce (usually to avoid work-related expenses such as daycare or commuting costs) logic dictates that the main breadwinner remain employed. So though the stigma against stay-at-home dads may have dropped away, moms still earn less, and therefore their jobs are more expendable. In fact, there are indications that women have been taking a harder hit in this economy when it comes to decreasing wages. Back in 2004, a study released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research indicated women’s wages were already falling while men’s were merely stagnant.

The only mention of the pay gap in the Times article is parenthetical:

“Pay is no longer rising smartly for women in the key 25-to-54 age group. Just the opposite, the median pay — the point where half make more and half less — has fallen in recent years, to $14.84 an hour in 2007 from $15.04 in 2004, adjusted for inflation, according to the Economic Policy Institute. (The similar wage for men today is two dollars more.)“ -Emphasis mine.

Has the gender gap become par for the course, so cliché as to be hardly worth mentioning? Is it so common that it has become acceptable?

As a new member of the (admittedly vast) age group the article cites, I’ve had my fair share of paycheck pain. Part of it is my distaste for working for large corporations. Small businesses are less able to weather difficult economic times and have fewer opportunities for advancement. But that doesn’t account for the entirety of the wage disparity I’ve experienced. When I finally decided to go to graduate school rather than stay at my job managing two office clinics, I helped choose my replacement. The doctor who signed my paycheck confided in me that hiring a male to replace me would be difficult, in part because they expect to be paid more. And guess who replaced me? A highly talented single mother of two who had been laid off from her last job. So, single mothers and women without access to affordable healthcare may not have the luxury (of alternatives). They may not be able to wait for the recession to end. Maybe they’ll just have to shut up and take what they can get.

While it’s true I don’t have children to take care of, it’s also true that I’ve never been in the financial position to even think about having any. I haven’t had affordable, comprehensive healthcare coverage since I finished my undergraduate degree and was forced off of my father’s healthcare plan. Luckily, I don’t have any major health issues besides extremely poor eyesight, and vision is so rarely covered by insurance that I’m in good company when I pay cash at someplace like America’s Best for a sorely-needed pair of new glasses...So if I were pregnant or chronically ill, I never would have had the luxury of going back to school. I’d be one of millions of women stuck in low paying jobs all over the country, without The New York Times having the journalistic fortitude to even mention my plight. And it looks like these women can’t depend upon Congress to stand up for them either.

One day after Equal Pay Day, the Senate failed to garner the votes needed to stop debate and vote on the Lilly Ledbetter Act. The act would have strengthened existing anti-discrimination legislation to make it harder for employers to knowingly underpay their workers. The House passed the bill last year. President George W. Bush threatened to veto it, but it looks like he won’t have to.

While it was largely ignored by the mainstream media, I think it’s important to know how presidential candidates voted. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) voted for the bill’s passage, while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was one of only two who missed this important vote...I’m not suggesting that legislation or a front-page article in The New York Times will solve the pay equity issue. But I simply can’t feign shock that women are dropping out of a system that doesn’t work for them. And I do think that 45 years after the Equal Pay Act was passed is as good a time as any to ask why we’ve given up on the idea of equal pay for equal work.