The recession is no economic victory for American women

This post is by Bryce Covert.

If you live in the United States, it’s hard to avoid hearing one of the media’s favorite buzzwords: “mancession“. The idea is that when the housing market imploded and the economy tanked, cyclical construction and manufacturing jobs – which are male-dominated – were hit hardest. That meant a greater number of men in the U.S. were left high and dry compared to women, who are largely employed in industries thought to be recession-proof (like education and healthcare). And all of this was true in the beginning.

As of July 2010, American men represented two-thirds of the 11 million jobs lost since the start of the recession in 2007. The male unemployment rate was at 11% in August 2009, while the female rate was 8.3% – the largest gap between the two in the postwar era. Add the fact that most of the bankers who got us into this mess are men, and therefore lost their jobs when bad investments backfired, and you would think that men have an economic target on their backs while women are doing just fine.

But that story is starting to change. U.S. job numbers released in early December showed that male unemployment has stayed the same or trended slightly down, while female unemployment continues to rise. It looks as if the two rates could soon be the same. Why the change? Far from being recession-proof, many female-dominated jobs are now in peril as state budgets are slashed. During a recession, tax revenues fall as the jobless (who can’t pay taxes) increase; there is also a greater need for spending on social safety net programs (like unemployment benefits). States are required to balance their budgets by law, so they must either raise taxes or cut spending – and guess which one is politically more favorable?

As budgets are whittled down, workers who get paid by state governments, like teachers, are likely to lose their jobs. As of 2009, 2.3 million women worked as elementary and middle school teachers, making up 82% of all teachers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). And Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, estimated in April that state budget cuts imperil 100,000 to 300,000 public school jobs (a number that could now be larger). Teachers aren’t the only ones affected. State-funded social workers and health care aides will also see their jobs dry up, and DOL records 1.7 million women working as nursing home aides. While the health care industry as a whole is healthy, some hospitals are closing their doors due to financial troubles, hitting some of the 2.6 million women who work as registered nurses. All of this is likely to worsen as the recession drags on and federal spending to prop up state budgets runs out.

Meanwhile, the idea of the mancession led to economic stimulus programs focused on creating jobs in male-heavy industries, while ignoring the need to also create jobs for women. Half of the new “green” jobs created by stimulus programs will be in areas such as engineering, consulting, manufacturing, construction and forestry. Yet women only hold 12% of the total U.S. engineering jobs and 25% of manufacturing and construction jobs. While some of the stimulus money went to propping up Medicaid programs and schools, indirectly saving women’s jobs, it didn’t focus on creating new ones.

The country is sorely in need of a physical makeover and men are sorely in need of jobs. But women are also on the unemployment line. Investments are needed in what Professor Linda Gordon calls “human infrastructure” – schools, childcare, eldercare, healthcare – alongside our physical infrastructure (just take a look at the country’s “average” ranking in the world for educational achievement to see the need for increased spending on teachers and schools). Both will pay dividends to future generations and ensure that everyone, no matter their gender, is put back to work.

The mancession story is also incomplete. It ignores the fact that women are more economically vulnerable to begin with: women are paid less than men for equal work, are heavily concentrated in lower-paying jobs, and are more likely to rely on state assistance. Women are four times more likely to receive Medicaid than men, and one in three single women aged 65 or over depends on Social Security for 90% of her income, which means many experience more financial insecurity. Women are also heavily concentrated in jobs with low wages – 1.7 million work as nursing home aides, 1.3 million as maids and housekeepers, and 1.2 million as child care workers, according to the DOL. And the gender wage gap is stagnant: in 2009, women who worked full-time, year-round made 77 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts, the same as the prior year.

Not to mention that over 20% of women were heads of households in 2000 (and that number is climbing upwards) and 26% of working mothers are single parents, which means they have to make their scarce financial means provide for a whole family. The mancession also fails to take into account the fact that most families rely on two incomes to survive, so the whole family feels the pain when a wife or a husband loses a job. Put together, it’s easy to see that women aren’t experiencing some sort of economic triumph. Many are barely breaking even.

The story of the mancession has put the focus on men’s economic suffering and pushed women to the side. Women have historically been left out of job creation programs – only 8,500 women were employed in the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) program during the Great Depression versus about 3 million men. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) employed 460,000 women, but they were stuck with lower paying projects such as sewing, nursing and housekeeping.

Those policies, as well as today’s stimulus packages, spring from a traditional view of the family, in which the man is the head of the household and main breadwinner. But that ceased to be the norm a long time ago. With today’s overall unemployment rate of 9.8%, too many people in the U.S. are suffering – both men and women. Public policies should reflect this fact and be aimed at helping women just as much as men. It’s clear that women can’t celebrate an economic victory over their male counterparts just yet.

Bryce Covert is an Assistant Editor at New Deal 2.0 and writes regularly for the feminist blog, The Lady Finger. Her interests include feminism, renewable energy, economic equality and progressive politics. She currently works and lives in New York City.

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