After reading an article yesterday about the end of the so-called "mancession," a recession where men were harder hit than women, I was surprised to read that the author concluded that women now stand to lose more ground as men find jobs [to be fair, the author notes that generally speaking jobs are still hard to come by for al]. My surprise didn't stem from her conclusion, I was surprised that this was somehow "news" when the "handwriting" has been on the wall for a while now.
New Jobs Are NOT White-Collar Friendly
As it has already been reported here, the government did not target white-collar jobs when they distributed its stimulus funds. No, those white-collar jobs that have left are not coming back for totally different reasons. Companies have found ways to be productive & make more money with less human capital either through technology or by shipping those jobs overseas where they can pay far lower wages & don't have to worry about "little things" like spiraling healthcare costs. Even once recession-proof jobs like lawyers & doctors are drying up, paying less, or going overseas. Now no job is 'safe." Whenever the subject of job creation comes up, the first thing people talk about is "rebuilding our infrastructure" referring directly & indirectly to so-called "shovel ready" jobs, positions that will be filled largely by men. As a result, while women now surpass men in the number of those who are college educated, their more familiar white-collar jobs are getting slashed both in the private & the public sector [even every college educated person's "backup job" teaching is seeing cuts]. With white-collar jobs getting hit from all sides, of course women will experience a harder time, at least in the near term. That is even before factoring in the societal bias that still exists when it comes to viewing men as the primary "bread earners" which may put them ahead in line for an available position.
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