“Man-cession” followed by slow recovery for women

Childcare providers, housekeepers, home health aides, and other jobs paying particularly low wages, make up 60 percent of the jobs gained by women from 2009 through 2012.

The fortunes of men and women have reversed during the economic recovery. The “man-cession” – so-called because men were laid off at disproportionately high rates – has been followed by a weak recovery for women in the workplace.

“Part of what was happening was that the deep cuts in public sector jobs started as the recovery started,” according to Joan Entmacher, VP for family economic security at the National Women’s Law Center.

Men reentered the economy more quickly and at higher wages, NWLC found. Only about twenty percent of jobs added for men fall into the low-wage categories that made up the bulk of women’s job gains.

“Even after the recovery started, women were losing massive numbers of jobs. They were very slow to pick up jobs in the public sector so that the recovery was slower for women than men.”

Entmacher’s organization found the trend was even higher for African American and Hispanic women.