Economy a great equalizer that hits both sexes
I suppose this falls under the general heading: "Be Careful What You Wish For."
There are a lot of folks who looked forward to the day women became equal participants in the work force. They tracked the gradual increase of women and debated why progress stalled over the past decade. They talked about work-family conflicts and the appeal of "opting out." What they didn't predict was that women might finally reach the goal of equality less because they scaled the heights than because men slipped downward. But here we are. In the winter of our economic discontent, men now hold more than 49 percent of the nation's jobs. If we cross the 50 percent line - hold the applause - it will be because men are losing their jobs faster than women.
This dubious equality is in large part an ongoing tale of two economies. Men tend to work in hard-hit manufacturing and construction. Women tend to work in jobs such as health care and education that haven't (yet) been as affected. Eight out of 10 pink slips went to men last year. The unemployment rate for women is bad enough at 6.2 percent, up 2 percent since 2007. But for men, it's 7.6 percent, up three points. Breadwinners? Or should I say crustwinners. The other dubious part of this "equality" for families is that even if women fill half the jobs, they don't bring home half the paychecks. They still earn 78 cents for every male dollar. In two-worker households, husbands earn close to two-thirds of the income and usually have the health insurance. So women's work has been more stable but less profitable. And don't forget that the recession is still on. Women may yet catch up (or down) with men's job losses. They are especially vulnerable to cutbacks in state and local government, where they work in disproportionate numbers. They are also less likely to get those "shovel-ready" jobs manned by, um, men and initially favored by the Senate bill than the jobs in the social infrastructure favored by the House. Remember that when the president speaks about creating and saving 4 million jobs, a lot of the ones to be saved are occupied by women. Nevertheless, if women are achieving this dubious equality in the macro-economy, what's happening in the micro-economy: the family? The optimists watching this social change always hoped that as women picked up paychecks out of the home, men would pick up the slack - and the socks - at home. Men, particularly young men, are doing more. Some are doing it all. But men in semi-traditional American household have settled into a pattern, doing more than their fathers, less than their wives.
In fact, the biggest strides toward equality in housework look a lot like the strides to equality in the work force. Men aren't doing more, women are doing less. And while there's been a lot of tension in families where women work the double shift, it's also true that many women who earned less than their husbands made an internal calculation. Paid less in the work force, they did more of the housework to make an "equal" contribution. How will this hold now?
The American Time Use Survey has an interesting wrinkle on relationships in a down economy. When women lose their jobs, they spend twice as much time on child care and housework. When men lose their jobs, their hours are spent sleeping, watching TV and job searching. Every huge economic change has an unpredictable impact on society.
We are about to see what happens to women who provide the family cushion ... or throw it. We are about to see if men are shovel-ready to take on more family and household labor. There is nothing in the stimulus package about it, but we may be jump-starting the languishing conversation about marriage as that 50-50 proposition.
© 2009, Washington Post Writers Group