At the start of the Great Recession, Lisa Blaker was a stay-at-home mom. Less than a year later, she wasn't. Instead, she became one of hundreds of thousands of women across the country who joined the workforce -- or added hours, or became a sole breadwinner -- amid the nation's most severe economic downturn in generations.And this isn't one of those "three of my friends" sorts of stories; the census bureau has measured an increase in the number of married women working. So amidst this very severe recession, with 10% unemployment, more married women are able to find jobs. Why would that be? Keep in mind that in America, married women are older and better educated than single women.
What we are seeing, I think, is just another lurch in the direction the economy has been trending for 50 years. Work in America is moving away from manufacturing, mining, and farming, all largely male pursuits, and toward health care, education, and personal services, where employment is dominated by women. Women with skills in these areas, especially older women with some experience, are finding more opportunities as the economy worsens for everyone else. One area of traditionally male work that continues to thrive is construction. Men with high school diplomas, who can no longer go to work in factories, can become carpenters or general construction workers. But construction is the most cyclical part of the economy, subject throughout modern history to large swings in employment. We are thus seeing a concentration of less educated men in the least stable part of the economy, and right now millions of those men are laid off.
The steady decline in job opportunities for less educated men is, I think, a great danger to our society. We can argue all day about whether the difference is or is not biological, but our reality is that we have millions of men who just don't want to spend years of their adult lives in school, sit in an office all day, or spend their working lives caring for other people. Women seem to be, on the whole, happier with life in offices and hospitals, and more of them are willing to spend four or more years in college. As a result of this we are seeing something like a class divide developing between men and women, with more women living middle class lives while many men still live the lives of traditional workers. The issue is not so much income as stability. Construction workers earn good wages when they work, and over the course of his life a backhoe operator may earn more money than his sister who becomes an x-ray technician. But membership in the middle class is not just about the level of income, but the stability of income. All of the psychological differences between poor and middle class people can be reduced to the attitude toward time: middle class people tend to view the future as something that can be planned for and controlled, while poor people see it as something that just happens to you. If you ask me, the growing difference between the experiences of working class women and men is one of the main reasons they are much less likely to get married or stay married than middle class Americans.
I think the question of how we are going to find work for men is one of the darkest clouds hanging over our future.
2 comments:
"but our reality is that we have millions of men who just don't want to spend years of their adult lives in school, sit in an office all day, or spend their working lives caring for other people. Women seem to be, on the whole, happier with life in offices and hospitals, and more of them are willing to spend four or more years in college"
I disagree. We do have men that don't want to do those things, but women aren't exactly thrilled about them either. I think that women simply lack options - we have to work harder to earn competitive wages, and aren't widely encouraged to pursue physical jobs - in fact, I suspect that a woman pursuing traditionally "male" jobs like welding, backhoe-driving, carpentry, etc. would be actively DIScouraged by peers and by prospective employers. Construction work isn't exactly a friendly, welcoming environment for women, although many women would probably enjoy it. There's even an organization of Professional Women in Construction, which has made some headway in getting women into construction and trade - but most construction sites I've seen have been staffed entirely by men.
I think the reason more women are willing to spend the time and money on a college education is because we simply can't compete in the workplace without one. We're willing to accept caregiving and office work because we can get it - most women I know want creatively satisfying jobs that challenge them and offer them opportunities for advancement and a living wage, just like men. I don't think women are "happier" in jobs that offer repetitive drudgery - we're just willing to suck it up because we have to.
If you are right that the difference between men and women is about opportunity, then men should eventually adapt to the loss of other opportunities by becoming more willing to stay in college, sit in a cubicle, etc. And I suppose that in a broad way this has happened over the past 50 years. But the existence of a large group of unemployed and under-employed men -- there are urban and rural neighborhoods where unemployment among young men is 50% -- suggests that this is not happening very easily or smoothly. By your logic those men should be as willing as their sisters to buckle down and do the work that is available, and so far they are not. Nor have I seen any evidence that millions of women are longing to become construction workers or loggers. Certainly hundreds have done so. But I have read a lot about why people go to college or stay in college, and no study I know of says that more women go to college because they see a lack of other opportunities. Women in college are on the whole very positive about the experience and the opportunities they see before them.
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