Has Post-Recession Hiring Been Sexist?
According to the LA Times, post-recession jobs have gone disproportionately to men.
Since the recession ended in June 2009, men have landed 80% of the 2.6 million net jobs created, including 61% in the last year. …
The gender gap has raised concerns about possible discrimination in hiring. If the trend persists, it could set back gains made by women in the workplace, experts said.
“It’s hard to know [whether] some employers place a priority on men going back to work,” said Joan Entmacher, vice president for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center. Of particular concern, she said: Opportunities for women in higher-paying fields such as manufacturing are shrinking.
That certainly sounds troubling and sexist, until you realize that men lost their jobs during the recession disproportionately too, as Justin Katz notes:
Men’s claiming 80% of new jobs doesn’t come close to compensating for the jobs that they lost, even if we hold that percentage steady.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from February 2008 to the month of the above New York Times article, the labor force had shed 5.2 million jobs. 80% of that would be 4.1 million. But employment didn’t turn positive until March 2010. Over the two years, employment fell 8.8 million, 80% of which is 7.0 million.
On the upswing (sorry, “upswing”) since then, employment has increased by 3.8 million people, 80% of which is 3.1 million. So, assuming that men have averaged four-fifths on both sides of the equation, the “sexist” 3.1 million gain is less than half of the equalizing 7.0 million loss. And that’s without considering that, on average, the new jobs pay less than those that disappeared.
Life looks quite a bit different when one imagines four million people out of work, rather than four million male figurines on a culture-war battle plan.
So men losing their jobs at disproportionate rates isn’t news, but men gaining back those jobs at disproportionate rates is evidence of sexism?
I’m not even sure that’s bias. That’s just lazy, intellectually vapid reporting.
Tags: Economy, jobs, sexism
