In this article, the number of men and women holding payroll jobs are compared. It was the first time in recorded history that women outnumber men on the nation's payroll. It comes largely at men's expense because men have been losing their jobs faster than women. According to seasonally unadjusted data released on Friday by the Labor Department, women held the majority of nonfarm payroll jobs in January. They also did so during February, March, November and December last year. Women's slender lead was highest last month, when they held 50.3 percent of the nation's nonfarm payroll jobs in the raw numbers.
This is due to the differences between the types of jobs that are held by men and women. Men are more likely to work in industries like manufacturing, which rise and fall with the economic cycle. Women are more likely to work in government, health care and education, among the safest categories in a downturn. Male-dominated industries are actually especially cyclical in two different ways: they are not only influenced by the business cycle, but also by the seasonal cycle. Industries like construction, which tend to employ men, get more work in warmer months.
I think this is interesting article because it disputes the common thought thatmen are necessary in the work force. This article shows this is not the case because when it comes to people being layed off men are losing their jobs at a much faster rate. That means men are working jobs that are more disposable and are much easier let off than the jobs like education and health care that women are typically working. I also think this is interesting becuase if more men are being layed off and women are still working there is likely a raise in the number of men who are staying at home and taking care of the kids and cooking the meals.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the article, women are playing more and more important roles in the society, especially in the job market. To be specific, women’s labor-force participation rate which is 50.3%, outnumbers men’s participation rate. There are many reasons for this phenomena. In part, it is due to new technologies, such as the washing machine, clothes dryer, which have reduced the amount of time required to complete routine household tasks. In part, it is due to improved birth control, which has reduced the number of children born to the typical family. And in part, this change in women’s role is due to changing political and social attitudes.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that the article highlights a very important fact in that fields such as manufacturing and manual labor have decreased heavily during the recession as companies and the government become hesitant to increase infrastructure construction. Furthermore I agree wholeheartedly that fields such as health care and education remain relatively stable. This is very interesting especially riding on the tails of the first ever representation by female politicians during the elections.
ReplyDeleteI do think that article is interesting, due to the fact that there are more women in the workplace then men, and the type of jobs women have versus men. If men's jobs are really cyclical then once again men will be the majority. I think a better way to compare roles and jobs of men and women are the median of wages. According to the United States department of labor;
ReplyDelete"The median weekly earnings of women who were full-time wage and salary workers was $638, or 80 percent of men’s $798. When comparing the median weekly earnings of persons aged 16 to 24, young women earned 91 percent of what young men earned ($420 and $461, respectively)." (http://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/main.htm).
Even though women may be in the majority of the workforce they are still earning on median less then men.
This is a really interesting article to see the differences in men and women in regards to which industry they are in. I never knew that men's jobs are cyclical, but it does make sense with the type of industries they are most likely to be working in.
ReplyDeleteI am really interested in this news when I saw the title of this article. To be candid, I was a little shock when I saw the statement that women now are a majority in American workplaces. After read this news, I am inspired by the analysis of this article; I realize that after the sounding news (to women), other than the improvement of women’s social status, there are some other objective environmental factors that lead to this surprising phenomenon. For example, in the phase of recession, men are more likely to lose their jobs than women, because the types of jobs men take are more risky than that of women’s jobs. Therefore, in this special period, women are becoming the majority of American workplaces. In summary, I hope in the future, no matter in which phase, women will get equal opportunities as men get.
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