It’s tough bein’ a sister, livin’ in the USA. As the New York Times tells it, “Across the country, women in their prime earning years, struggling with an unfriendly economy, are retreating from the work force, either permanently or for long stretches.” In an “above the fold” July 22 story, “Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy” reporter Louis Uchitelle quotes from a conveniently leaked report from the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, telling a tale of woe, how the percentage of women in the workforce, which has risen for the past 50 years, has actually declined from its April 2000 peak of 74.9% to 72.7% in June 2007, despite the recent economic recovery. For the first time, the percentage didn’t climb to a new high following a recovery.
As Uchitelle explains “After moving into virtually every occupation, women are being afflicted on a large scale by the same troubles as men: downturns, layoffs, outsourcing, stagnant wages or the discouraging prospect of an outright pay cut. And they are responding as men have, by dropping out or disappearing for a while.”
An accompanying graphic shows us that the workforce participation rate for men stood at 86.4% in June 2008, 14 points higher than the rate for women, but almost 10 points lower than the all-time high of 96% way back in March 1953. “Labor market woes have chipped away for years at the presence of men at work, and now that is happening to women.”
Uchitelle’s unstated assumption is that the higher the labor force participation rate, the better. But the 96% participation rate for men back in 1953 was the product of the Korean War “boom” and the draft, two things that not many people feel nostalgic for. And I don’t think that the decline to 86% in the present day is the result of “labor market woes,” since the average household income back in 1953 was $27,365 (median, stated in 2006 dollars), less than half of the 2006 median of $58,407.*
The three case histories Uchitelle presents (not, obviously, a representative sample of the more than two million “afflicted” women he claims to be profiling) aren’t terribly convincing. Lisa Craig, a welfare mother with three children, hasn’t worked much since 1993. Back in 2000 she had a $10 an hour job in Chicago, but she quit after less than a year to move in with her sister in Milwaukee. Since then she hasn’t worked much. An economic victim? Well, maybe.
How about Tootie Samson of Baxter, Iowa? She was earning $20 an hour working on an assembly line but then she got laid off. She doesn’t like the $9 an hour jobs she sees, and doesn’t think she can find another $20 an hour job soon. So she’s collecting unemployment and going to college while her husband works.
And then there’s Joyce Call of Howell, Michigan who quit her $25,000 a year job because of a paltry pay raise (28 cents an hour) and a zero Christmas bonus. That’s right, zero! Fortunately, her husband makes about seventy grand a year as a plumber, so Joycie isn’t in a lot of trouble.
Shockingly, one gets the impression that for a lot of women working full time isn’t very exciting. They’ve got other things they’d rather do, and they’ve got the financial resources that allow them to do them. So is this affliction or affluence? I ask you!
*Furthermore, you get a lot more for your money these days. In 1953 a 21-inch black and white TV cost $2500, adjusted for inflation. Plus, you only got two channels. Oh, and try living in the average home circa 1954—a spacious 1,000 square feet, with no air conditioning, a coal furnace, and maybe a clothes washer (but no dryer or dishwasher).
