The term “man-cession” is foreign to me. I had no idea that’s what someone has dubbed the recent economic recession. Even though it’s kind of a silly term, when looking at the unemployment numbers from the recession, it does seem to make sense.
Let me explain: As a casual observer of world and national news, I understood how the recession affected millions. What I didn’t realize, however, was how unemployment among men jumped during the recession – much more than it did with women.
It turns out that employment among men plummeted by more than 5.2 million between November 2007 and December 2009, due of course, to losses in male-dominated industries, such as construction, manufacturing and financial services. Employment among women only dropped 1.9 million during the same time period. Those statistics are courtesy of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. with data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The good news for guys is that the economic recovery is favoring their gender – since January 2010, male employment has increased by 1.7 million. For women, employment has only grown by about 365,000 in the same time frame. Over the past year, the number of employed women has actually fallen by about 85,000, whereas 686,000 males have gotten jobs.
There’s still a long way to go for the male employment sector, however – unemployment is at 8.9%, more than twice the 4.2% it was before the recession hit.
While the numbers might point to a “man-cession” of sorts, we can’t forget that women still only earn about 78 cents to the dollar that men earn. So, while more women might have kept their jobs during the recession, those jobs are lower-paying than many of the jobs that were lost in the male-dominated sectors.
I can’t see “man-cession” turning up in my every day vocabulary; more than likely I’ll just stick by the old standard recession and hope that a continued recovery happens as quickly as possible.
Written by Charlee Beasor