The ‘Mancession’ Is Real. (But Don’t Forget About the Girls!)
Today on Change.org, Lauren Kelly reports that the Great Recession has indeed caused a significant unemployment gender gap—a “mancession,” if you will—with men topping 11 percent unemployment in August 2009 compared to 8.3 percent for women. If you’ve been following the healthy stream of mancession reporting over the past months, this should come as no surprise. But what may be surprising, if you haven’t already heard it, is that recessions always impact men more than women, and—get this—the current mancession isn’t actually as bad for the boys as downturns past. (See the convenient BLS chart above.)
So now for a game of connect-the-dots: If the mancession is real, which we know it is, it means women are increasingly becoming household breadwinners. And if women are the breadwinners, the fact that we still make 77 cents to the dollar—whether or not we have children—takes on a whole new urgency. (Of course, who can resist using “Mancession” in a headline?)
