More Men Losing Jobs

Greg Burns wrote in the Los Angeles Times that men are suffering the brunt of layoffs.

To a much greater extent than in past recessions, men are bearing the brunt.

In December 2007, when the economy started tanking, unemployment ran nearly even at 4.4% for men and 4.3% for women. In February, that tally had shot up to 8.8% for men and 7.3% for women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The 1.5-point spread is historic and likely to widen as the overall numbers keep soaring, said Mark Perry, an economist at the University of Michigan in Flint. "I don't see it turning yet."

I'm sure Obama will get right on this and other issues disproportionately hurting men by creating a Commission on Men and Boys. I'm so confident he will I'm going to hold my breath.

Here I go...

...

Okay, so I decided that wasn't a good idea.

A bona fide "man-cession" invites all sorts of social theories: Maybe women are cheaper to keep on the payroll because they tend to make less. Maybe women are better communicators, which helps shield them from the ax. Maybe women feel they have more to prove, so they get retained for trying harder.

Such sexism! Such stereotypes!

Since 1981, women have earned far more bachelor's degrees, collecting 135 for every 100 awarded to men, Perry said. At the master's level, the "degree gap" is an even wider 150 to 100.

So much for the patriarchy.

Counting farm labor and the self-employed, working men outnumber women by about 10 million. It's not 50-50, but it's moving that way.

Ah! And here was I just about to suggest women should take over paying for dates.

All that higher education and the economic devastation of traditional male strongholds won't make much difference in cracking a "really prevalent" glass ceiling, said Jenny Hoobler, an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago's College of Business Administration.

"As far as leadership, it doesn't translate," Hoobler said. "Women don't ascend to the top ranks."

Oooh, so that evil patriarchy does exist! What else could explain this? Certainly not the articles we've read on women taking more time off, women deciding to place family before their careers (which I applaud, if they want a family), or women sabotaging each other.

Seriously, the bottom line is that there are more men in the workforce, so more men are losing their jobs. Likewise, the "wage gap" that is touted as favoring men is almost entirely explainable without sexism.