An article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic (“The End of Men” by Hanna Rosin) asks a lot of questions about women’s progress in the economy. Reactions are flying around Twitter and other cultural touchstones, like The Colbert Report.
One of the article’s questions I have been thinking about is: What if the modern, postindustrial economy is more congenial to women? My conclusion so far is: I will remain unconvinced until women begin reaping the higher economic rewards that would and should follow if this were the case.
Currently, some economic rewards for women have come in the form of less job loss than men. Overall, the recession has been relatively less economically dislocating for most women because the sectors women tend to work in (such as health care and education) have not been shrinking. Although, as I have noted here before, women who head families have higher unemployment rates than many other population groups (11.6 percent in May 2010, compared to 9.8 among men 20 and older, for example).
Increasing educational attainment among women – both in general and relative to men – should also reward them economically. Americans with bachelor’s degrees, for example, have more than two times the median weekly earnings of those who never completed high school (see here). According to the National Center for Education Statistics, women are projected to earn 62.3 percent of associate’s degrees, 60 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 61 percent of master’s degrees conferred in 2009-10.
Still, these rewards are behind schedule:
- Women surpassed men in attainment of associate’s degrees in 1977-78, bachelor’s degrees in 1981-82 and master’s degrees in 1985-86.
- Women are not earning as much as men in most occupations. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation), median weekly earnings for full-time women workers were $657 in 2009, compared with $819 per week for men (a gender wage gap of 19.8 percent).
- Women are not earning as much as men even in most women-dominated occupations. Women who are registered nurses, secretaries, maids and cashiers still have lower median weekly earnings than men in the same jobs.
We literally cannot afford to rest on our successes. We must continue to advocate for women’s economic equality at the international, national and regional levels, including in pay, benefits (such as paid sick leave) and workplace flexibility.
Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at Washington Area Women’s Foundation.
