By Martha Burk

 

WE KEEP HEARING THAT the recent "mancession" -- so named because men lost more jobs in the U.S. economic downturn than women -- is over.

Tell that to women still looking for work, working part time because they can't find full-time jobs or working far below their skill levels just to stay afloat. Even though the recession officially ended in 2009, it's still alive and well for many workers, and increasingly those are women. In fact, almost 90 percent of the jobs created in the last year have gone to men, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"What was once termed a 'mancession' is now a 'womancession,'" says Anika Rahman, president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women (created as a separate-but-related entity to Ms. magazine, but since 1987 an independently operated nonprofit). According to the foundation's 2011 Community Voices for the Economy survey, conducted in spring 2011 by Lake Research Partners, the economic crisis is not over for the majority of Americans, with women especially hard-hit. Some key findings:

• 71 percent of women reported still feeling the effects of the recession, in contrast to only 65 percent of men. Over the last year, the percentage of women who say their families were greedy affected increased (from 25 percent in 2010 to 31 percent in 2011); it jumped even more for blue-collar, low income and unmarried women.
• Low-income women have been hurt the most by the recession: Eighty percent report it having "some or a great deal of impact" in their lives, the highest of any demographic (73 percent of low income men said the same). Other groups hit hardest were single mothers (73 percent), Latinas and women without a college degree (both 74 percent).

At the beginning of the recession, men were hit harder because of the "cyclical" industries in which they dominated, such as construction and manufacturing. (Women employees, on the other hand, are found in greater numbers in non-cyclical industries, such as education and health care.) According to an analysis by Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., the cyclical industries were hit much harder in terms of job loss.

In the last 12 months, however, the pain has shifted somewhat. The private sector has added 1.7 million jobs, while the public sector has lost more than 850,000. And the public sector is where women are 50 percent more likely than men to be employed.

A May report by the U.S. Department of Labor on "Women's Employment During the Recovery" also shows that more women are working part time than they were before the recession. Prior to it, less than 1 in 10 women took part-time jobs because they couldn't find full-time work; now that figure is 1 in 5.

Despite the miserable numbers, the Republicans on Capitol Hill have opposed any further boost to the economy with stimulus money. Nor are they calling on business to hire more workers with the $2 trillion in profits they're sitting on. What's more, Republican governors and state legislators are slashing education and health care funding, laying off teachers and attacking public sector unions, all in the name of "deficit reduction." The deficits, however, have often been of their own making, caused by tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals.

Rahman says this adds up to a triple blow: "Women are now losing jobs faster than men because of drastic cuts in areas like education and health care, where they make up the majority of the workforce. As the majority of state and local public-sector workers, women are affected most by attacks on public-sector unions. And women suffer most from cuts to social services because they're more likely to be poor and care for children and the elderly."

Moreover, in order to justify deficit reduction over governmental action to create jobs, some financial experts and pundits are pushing the notion of "structural unemployment" -- joblessness caused not by lack of demand but by a mismatch between the jobs that are available and the skills of those looking for work. Translation: Blame it on the worker.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner for economics, strongly disagrees. "On the contrary, all the facts suggest that high unemployment in America is the result of inadequate demand- full stop," he said in The New York Times last year. "Powerful forces are ideologically opposed to the whole idea of government action on a sufficient scale to jump-start the economy. And that ... is why claims that we face huge structural problems have been proliferating: They offer a reason to do nothing about the mass unemployment that is crippling our economy and our society."

The Ms. Foundation survey showed that Americans want more action from government on the employment, not less. Among respondents, 56 percent affirmed that, "It is time for government to take a larger and stronger role in making the economy work for the average American." The alternative, "turning to big government to solve our economic problems will do more harm than good," only drew 36 percent support.

Women are increasingly supporting more government action. The number of women preferring a "stronger role for government grew from 55 percent in 2010 to 62 percent today. Not surprisingly, this is truest for those suffering the most in this so-called mancession: women of color. What needs to be done? How about this: Release more stimulus money to create more jobs (and therefore more demand) instead of laying off public sector workers and attacking unions. Tax excess corporate profits, particularly those reaped by exporting jobs to low wage countries and by oil companies, which are reaping the highest corporate profits in history. Or end the Bush-era massive tax cuts to wealthy individuals.

Paying women what they're worth- especially employed mothers- would help, too. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, full-time employed moms earned 72.5 percent of what men did in 2010 ($667 per week versus $920). Non-mothers, however, made 87 percent of what men did.

As the debate rages over the budget in the U.S. Congress and state legislatures, at least some of the electorate has begun to reject the notion of drastically cutting social programs and public jobs. In New York, Democrat Kathy Hochul was elected to the U.S. House from a traditional Republican district on a platform of opposing cuts to Medicare. In Wisconsin, where the governor and state Legislature have drastically cut funds for public education and crippled public unions, a recall campaign has targeted six Republican state senators and Gov. Scott Walker himself.

The Ms. Foundation's findings adds fuel to this fire of resistance. Rahman sees the survey as a wake up call to "stop the reckless gutting of the budget in the name of deficit reduction, and create jobs that will enable women to recover. If women cannot move forward, then our economy cannot move forward."

 

MARTHA BURK is the Ms. money editor.