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American women face the recession

Guest: Allison Martell

I just wandered by CNN in time to catch a short segment with Heidi Hartmann, President of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. She was talking about the impact of the current economic downturn on women. Hartmann, who is also a professor at George Washington University, recently made similar points to the Joint Economic Committee, so I read through her testimony. Here’s what I learned:

First, there’s something I hadn’t thought of, which wasn’t mentioned on CNN: when a recession hits, men are more likely to lose their jobs or see their wages fall than women. Men are overrepresented in manufacturing and construction, and those jobs are often the first to go in tough times. This might be changing – during the 2001 recession, women’s employment rates went down for the first time in 40 years. But at least as of June this year, Hartmann said that “women overall have been protected by their relative concentration in non-cyclical industries.”

Looking at all “women overall” can disguise the real problem, though. Mothers, especially single mothers, don’t have much economic security to begin with, so small fluctuations matter. In fact, Hartmann says that mothers’ employment has been falling steadily for awhile already, for reasons we don’t completely understand: “A recession or weak job growth will only exacerbate the problems that face mothers who want and need to work but must find work that is compatible with their family’s needs.”

It’s no surprise, then, that women are more likely to worry about the economy. Says Hartmann: “Their concern reflects the reality of women’s lives: They are more likely than men to have to put off getting health care, wait to buy things their children need, or go hungry.”

Further Reading

Hartmann’s full statement contains a lot of background and data, and it’s well explained. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research has a ton of information about American women’s economic status. At the Women’s Media Centre last month, Hartmann writes that Shaky Economic Times are Shakier for Women. I mentioned that the last recession was particularly tough on women – here’s an article from way back in 2003 about how the mainstream media missed the story completely, worth remembering as this recession develops.

27 thoughts on American women face the recession

  1. In fact, Hartmann says that mothers’ employment has been falling steadily for awhile already, for reasons we don’t completely understand: “A recession or weak job growth will only exacerbate the problems that face mothers who want and need to work but must find work that is compatible with their family’s needs.”

    My off-the-cuff, non-economist’s guess? The cost of reliable child care is so high that the family ends up losing money if the wife goes back to work. Essentially, she ends up working to pay for the child care and isn’t able to actually add anything to the family’s bottom line. If that’s the case, then she may as well stay home until the child is old enough for less expensive care.

  2. Mnemosyne: I didn’t go into too much depth in this post, because I didn’t want to derail my focus completely, but what we’re getting at is the whole opt-out revolution debate. Some people argue that mothers’ employment rates aren’t falling at all, though I’m pretty convinced by Hartmann’s numbers from 2006. As for why they are falling – I think you’re right. It’s tough to work and raise a family in US right now. Take the cost of childcare, throw in no federal mandated parental leave, and a whole bunch of other factors that I’ll come around to in the next couple weeks, and you have fewer mothers working.

  3. Not to mention just plain old sexism. I’m noticing it more and more as the economy tightens. Granted the industry I work in (law) can be more than a little sexist to begin with, but when I started it wasn’t nearly this bad. As the work has dried up for some over the last year they see other associates as competitors for the remaining work. I cannot believe the shit coming out of the mouths of people I had at one point respected.

    Someone actually said to me “Yes, well, if something happens you can just go home and start having kids. I need a career.”

    WTF?

  5. Oops – looks like I had some copy/paste HTML problems. They should be fixed now. Sorry!

  6. One of the things that I have noticed about big F feminism, and this may not be an accurate perception, so feel free to correct me, is that there is a much lower appreciation among women that enlightenment and oppression happens in cycles. Ever greater progression in civil rights is not typically the rule, especially beyond a generation or so. I believe that the current multigenerational expansion has alot to do with industrial revolution backed by fossil fuels.

    As a black person mindful of history, I am very conscious in how drastically things can change. One form of slavery, then a cotton gin based slavery, boom! emancipation, then reenslavement through penury and prison labor, then Jim Crow a bit past the high point of that, then civil rights era, and as you can see, an increase and decrease in the quality of life over the past couple of hundred years. Same with jewish people in europe, and pretty much the same with women everywheres.

    The shape of the economy tends to dictate what civil rights we have. If women becomes a currency (men who can provide for the largest harem has the most status), then the system feedbacks will force women to have no rights no matter how much women and some men may protest. The only times things change is when things become untenable, or when the dominant party figures to benefit from liberalisation. It hardly ever happens otherwise.

    I believe that we are in a retrenching of civil rights. I know some of you think that a defensive crouch is a bad thing, but I have absolutely no illusions about human nature. People, by and large, are truly capable of being rather monstrously evil with little prompting or social conditioning. It takes quite a bit of social conditioning, equitable societies, and empathetic teaching to make people not act in a particularly “innovative” fashion. When things of that nature is going down, due to social or economic disruption, respect for civil liberties goes down as well. I think we *should* be prepared to play defense for awhile

  7. I personally know more women looking for work or are overeducated in their jobs than men. On a job forum I was posting about my frustrations in looking for work and most responses to this post were from women.

    Kristen, wow, isn’t it crazy that people think that way?! With a comment like that I usually respond with, “I don’t want to have kids, thank you very much.”

    Geez, I could write so much about my frustrations with jobs, money and this economy in my life but its tiring to think about because it has been so disappointing. Looking for work after grad school has been a drag. So this leads me to believe I need to create my own organization. Which I am in the process of dialogging with several people and maybe will begin something soon.

  8. oooh, shah, thanks for that comment. One of the things that bugs me about some of us feminists is that we forget how contingent our advances are. I certainly believe that some gains for women come as a result of advocacy, but they also tend to come at times that are economically convenient. Or for other reasons that are equally contingent. We cannot ever let our guard down.

    As for working mothers, I wonder if some of the drop off has to do with women working part-time jobs, often more than one, or doing occasional work or work on contract. Certainly not seniority protected union work. Part-time, occasional jobs are usually first on the chopping block. But I don’t know for sure on what criteria the data is collected.

  10. Shah makes a good point but I’d rather play O than D. If women have leverage, we won’t have to be on the defensive. There are differences in ability to gain leverage based on class and education, but I think relative to similarly situated men, women should arm ourselves as much as possible to be less vulnerable to economic downturns.

    “Essentially, she ends up working to pay for the child care and isn’t able to actually add anything to the family’s bottom line. If that’s the case, then she may as well stay home until the child is old enough for less expensive care.”

    While sometimes this is unavoidable, I think there are things that can be done to make it less necessary. Women should make economics a priority to the extent similarly situated men do, and schools/families/mentors should support and encourage this. Where women have the lower income, we should realize that dropping out means we will always have the lower income, and we may not be able to get back in. Whereas staying in the workplace, however difficult and however minimal or nonexisent the short-term benefit, will mean that we will continue employable and eventually get raises such that our work will make a net positive economic difference.

  11. Thanks for this post, and those links.

    @Octogalore
    “Where women have the lower income, we should realize that dropping out means we will always have the lower income, and we may not be able to get back in. Whereas staying in the workplace, however difficult and however minimal or nonexisent the short-term benefit, will mean that we will continue employable and eventually get raises such that our work will make a net positive economic difference.”

    That’s the thesis of Leslie Bennett’s The Feminine Mistake : Are We Giving Up Too Much?

    “While sometimes this is unavoidable, I think there are things that can be done to make it less necessary.”

    Would you mind elaborating on this point; are there any particular things that come to mind?

  12. @juju: Yes. Bennetts, Linda Hirshman, and others have talked about these themes.

    What can be done to make dropping out less necessary?

    — approach career with the assumption that we will need to at least be self-supporting and likely will be contributing to the support of others. An assumption men at all income levels typically make.

    — if we do not have a passion for an aspect of the humanities that isn’t well-paying or is risky, we should aggressively pursue business/technical careers or other careers that are well-paying

    — if we do have a passion for an aspect of the humanities that isn’t well-paying or is risky, we should learn some skills like programming or finance or vocational skills to have a backup in case the eggs in that basket don’t hatch.

    — we should avoid taking on debt without a solid plan to pay it back (including school debt)

    — we should attempt (here’s why I conditioned this with “sometimes unavoidable”) to time childbirth with a point at which we are in a job where we can take a few months off with limited repercussions.

    — we should discuss with our partner, if we have one, that whether or not we have the lower income, we expect we will keep working after childbirth, and we expect his/her support for that before, during and after childbirth. We will not be shouldering more than our share of parenting or housework. This needs to be firmly negotiated upfront.

    — if he/she doesn’t get why this is important, we should ask him/her to google “Terry Hekker” who was a spokeswoman for SAHMs and changed her views after her divorce. Or, maybe we don’t share this info, but we definitely make sure we ourselves are aware of it.

    — we should not, as women, feel ashamed of pursuing economic goals. We should value philanthropy, but understand that if we don’t take care of ourselves first, we may not be in a position to give time to activism or to give money.

    — we should make sure our daughters are encouraged to play with building toys as well as dolls, with science kits as well as toy kitchens. We should limit the number of books with “rescue” themes we share with them (eg, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty). We should treat them similarly to how we’d treat boys, and teach them to save money from an early age, to work for it and not feel shame about it or that it’s “cute” not to care about it or understand it. We should make sure books we read to them have doctors as well as nurses who are female.

    — if we can, we should donate to the Grameen foundation so that women in third world countries can have access to starting entrepreneurial ventures.

    That’s a few ideas. Let me know your thoughts.

  14. @juju: Yes. Bennetts, Linda Hirshman, and others have talked about these themes.

    What can be done to make dropping out less necessary?

    – approach career with the assumption that we will need to at least be self-supporting and likely will be contributing to the support of others. An assumption men at all income levels typically make.

    – if we do not have a passion for an aspect of the humanities that isn’t well-paying or is risky, we should aggressively pursue business/technical careers or other careers that are well-paying

    – if we do have a passion for an aspect of the humanities that isn’t well-paying or is risky, we should learn some skills like programming or finance or vocational skills to have a backup in case the eggs in that basket don’t hatch.

    – we should avoid taking on debt without a solid plan to pay it back (including school debt)

    – we should attempt (here’s why I conditioned this with “sometimes unavoidable”) to time childbirth with a point at which we are in a job where we can take a few months off with limited repercussions.

    – we should discuss with our partner, if we have one, that whether or not we have the lower income, we expect we will keep working after childbirth, and we expect his/her support for that before, during and after childbirth. We will not be shouldering more than our share of parenting or housework. This needs to be firmly negotiated upfront.

    – if he/she doesn’t get why this is important, we should ask him/her to google “Terry Hekker” who was a spokeswoman for SAHMs and changed her views after her divorce. Or, maybe we don’t share this info, but we definitely make sure we ourselves are aware of it.

    – we should not, as women, feel ashamed of pursuing economic goals. We should value philanthropy, but understand that if we don’t take care of ourselves first, we may not be in a position to give time to activism or to give money.

    – we should make sure our daughters are encouraged to play with building toys as well as dolls, with science kits as well as toy kitchens. We should limit the number of books with “rescue” themes we share with them (eg, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty). We should treat them similarly to how we’d treat boys, and teach them to save money from an early age, to work for it and not feel shame about it or that it’s “cute” not to care about it or understand it. We should make sure books we read to them have doctors as well as nurses who are female.

    – if we can, we should donate to the Grameen foundation so that women in third world countries can have access to starting entrepreneurial ventures.

    That’s a few ideas. Let me know your thoughts.

  16. Juju: Yes. Bennetts, Linda Hirshman, and others have talked about these themes.

    What can be done to make dropping out less necessary?

    – approach career with the assumption that we will need to at least be self-supporting and likely will be contributing to the support of others. An assumption men at all income levels typically make.

    – if we do not have a passion for an aspect of the humanities that isn’t well-paying or is risky, we should aggressively pursue business/technical careers or other careers that are well-paying

    – if we do have a passion for an aspect of the humanities that isn’t well-paying or is risky, we should learn some skills like programming or finance or vocational skills to have a backup in case the eggs in that basket don’t hatch.

    – we should avoid taking on debt without a solid plan to pay it back (including school debt)

    – we should attempt (here’s why I conditioned this with “sometimes unavoidable”) to time childbirth with a point at which we are in a job where we can take a few months off with limited repercussions.

    – we should discuss with our partner, if we have one, that whether or not we have the lower income, we expect we will keep working after childbirth, and we expect his/her support for that before, during and after childbirth. We will not be shouldering more than our share of parenting or housework. This needs to be firmly negotiated upfront.

    – if he/she doesn’t get why this is important, we should ask him/her to google “Terry Hekker” who was a spokeswoman for SAHMs and changed her views after her divorce. Or, maybe we don’t share this info, but we definitely make sure we ourselves are aware of it.

    – we should not, as women, feel ashamed of pursuing economic goals. We should value philanthropy, but understand that if we don’t take care of ourselves first, we may not be in a position to give time to activism or to give money.

    – we should make sure our daughters are encouraged to play with building toys as well as dolls, with science kits as well as toy kitchens. We should limit the number of books with “rescue” themes we share with them (eg, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty). We should treat them similarly to how we’d treat boys, and teach them to save money from an early age, to work for it and not feel shame about it or that it’s “cute” not to care about it or understand it. We should make sure books we read to them have doctors as well as nurses who are female.

    – if we can, we should donate to the Grameen foundation so that women in third world countries can have access to starting entrepreneurial ventures.

    That’s a few ideas. Let me know your thoughts.

  17. I would question that a recession hits men harder. in white collar jobs, if you have a husband or get child support, people think you can just be laid off and it won’t be as bad as laying off a man. If you are single, childless, even the women with kids at work can be brutal. Just today at work, the two other women in the office played gossip time about the single childless woman. All of a sudden there is a rationale that childless means you can be laid off. All of a sudden, their desks are filled with kid pictures when lay offs are rumored. It’s a feminist issue all around. The first assumption is that the women get voted off first, it it’s like survivor that way. The bias is, women just don’t need jobs as much as men do. Also, the bias is: if you don’t have children, you don’t need a job. That’s cozy for the people who have kids, but wait until you get older. If you don’t have young kids, you don’t need a job either under that logic.

    But, I’ll also mention the bias that women have against other women. Instead of looking at the root cause, sexist bias, they are made to set out against one another.

  18. Why are children part of women’s problems in a recession?

    I mean, obviously, they are. No question.

    But for those families that have two parents, one of which is male, people aren’t saying ‘it’s hard to be a father in a recession, because you have to think about things the kids need’.

    I mean, clearly we know why – because so often fathers DON’T worry about the kids – or at least not as much as their mothers. But that’s not fair to all the fathers that do. What about single fathers? What about two-father households?

    What about not buying into the idea that children are women’s job, their problem?

  19. @Octogalore

    Thank you for such a thoughtful response.

    Most of my jobs have been in academia/cultural institutions, in predominately female and low paying fields. I have never worked in the corporate world, except a few customer service jobs during high school. As much as I love working with original sources materials/cultural objects, I know that I can not continue to go from adjunct job to grant funded project. In order for me to be happy in a job, I need to see that I making a positive impact on individuals or the society at large. If I knew of work that pays well while not being too harmful to the earth and her peoples, human or otherwise, I would be all over it. It needs to be work that is not too all consuming that allows me time/energy for my family and other pursuits. I’m strongly considering going back to school for yet another graduate degree and am trying to match my skills/experience with something much more profitable, but I haven’t found that yet. My husband has a similar background, and is probably more practical than me; he is going back to school for an MBA this fall.

    I consider myself extremely fortunate to have been able to work part-time during my daughters first year. My husband was a fulltime dad during her second year of life. She has just turned two and hubby is now going back to school. We had some savings, but we incurred considerable debt during these last two years, compounded by our preexisting school debts. In spite of the debt, I feel so luck to have married a man who values fulltime parenting.

    I’m not great with money. I’m cheap and probably have a bit of a money phobia. I know that it is important that I model for my daughter a more positive relationship with money. And I agree with all your ideas about gender and toys/books.

  20. Juju – thanks for your kind words. If it is OK I will think out loud on paper a bit.

    Also, I am so sorry for the triple posting! I thought I hit the wrong button. Mea culpa.

    These things jumped out at me:

    • Most of my jobs have been in academia/cultural institutions, in predominately female and low paying fields.
    • I have never worked in the corporate world, except a few customer service jobs during high school.
    • In order for me to be happy in a job, I need to see that I making a positive impact on individuals or the society at large.
    • It needs to be work that is not too all consuming that allows me time/energy for my family and other pursuits.
    • My husband has a similar background, and is probably more practical than me; he is going back to school for an MBA this fall.
    Do you see where I’m going? This is absolutely not meant to be any kind of negative reflection on you as I feel strongly that there’s no one right choice on an individual basis.
    So – there is a theme here. You mention that you have gravitated towards “predominantly female and low paying fields,” need immediate helping-others ability for you to be happy, need time flexibility, and have a male partner who has chosen a more likely-remunerative route.

    No stereotype here; seems like your husband is an egalitarian guy who does his share of parenting.

    But over larger percentages, where women set up happiness-requirements (even informal ones) around employment that men don’t have, eg re helping (which doesn’t apply as much to lower-income women who cannot afford to insist on this), time allotment, non-corporate, we are ceding the leverage and power to men.

    Of course there’s a good counter. Not all power is financial, they love us and won’t take advantage, they value our contributions even though we don’t contribute monetarily as much.

    Thing is, 52% of them don’t. (That’s not about you, your guy sounds like a gem). And even where one doesn’t divorce, I’ve found that over time, the best leverage comes with the kind of power that has an internationally understood and respected meaning.

    So again – I don’t think we should critique individual women’s choices. But I don’t think we should avoid looking at patterns, averages. We cannot have it both ways. If we are choosier in terms of our employment requirements, we will lose power and we will be less able to weather recessions than our male counterparts.

  21. “where women set up happiness-requirements (even informal ones) around employment that men don’t have, eg re helping (which doesn’t apply as much to lower-income women who cannot afford to insist on this), time allotment, non-corporate, we are ceding the leverage and power to men.”

    I’ve heard this argument before. People use it all the time in my field where 14 hour days are required and the expectation is that nothing outside your job is as important as your job. I’m responsible for caring for my ailing father and the response at work is…don’t you have sibling or something that can take care of that? High pressure, high paying careers often come with a sacrifice of personal space and time.

    When a woman leaves I often hear “well, women have different priorities” as if that were something built directly into our ovaries and as if it were ridiculous that anyone might possibly value things other than this career.

    It always leaves me wondering something. Aren’t those who don’t value career over our personal life *right* to have happiness requirements around employment? Isn’t it better to seek personal fulfillment in addition to financial fulfillment? Isn’t it an error in the social definition of masculinity (broadly, generalizing here) that requires men to place their career above all else in the universe. And if so…shouldn’t we be working to remove that harmful idea from the definition of masculinity rather than adding it to the “To Do” list of women?

    [Note: This obviously is only from the perspective of a highly privileged individual…I note that having these choices places me in a vastly better position than those that do not.]

  22. Hmm, I erred above — of course some of the 52% of marriages that break up are for reasons other than the guy not valuing contributions. And also that not all partnerships are marriages. But I think the point still holds, we want to be (and I know all of us here are) in the 48%, but who’s to say?

  23. Kristen – of course, using the example of a 14 hour required day, both men and women with family and outside interests would be advised to look elsewhere.

    But you’re using a very limited example. Most people qualified for a high-status job can find less stressful high-status alternatives.

    For example, I used to have that situation as a litigator at a big firm. Instead I went into a field where I could use those qualifications but on my terms, and also optimize economics, so my workday is now 9-7 but I take long lunches, workout breaks, and time away where needed for family stuff.

    So I am not arguing that we should give up personal or family fulfillment. I think if you look at ways in which I was using “happiness requirement” you’ll see that. There’s a happy medium between investment banking or BigLaw hours and starving artistry: a challenging, stable job leaving time for personal and family goals. If I thought the “happiness /fulfillment requirements” being articulated by some women left open a variety of these kinds of possibilities , I’d have no problem with them.

    I have similar problems with men who put career front left and center and are lousy fathers or partners. I’m not saying the solution is for everyone to turn into a corporate automaton.

  24. @Octogalore

    I agree with the bulk of your comments and I would never recommend that other women make the same kind of choices that I have made in my life. Yes, I believe that women should have some economic leverage in relationships. At the same time, I never expected to make a lot of money considering the kind of work that I enjoy doing. My husband is pursuing the biz degree not simply for the money, but also because he actually likes some aspects of that world, and he believes that he will somehow be able to do the work without compromising his commitment to social justice. I respect his decisions but I don’t know if I could do the same. I agree with your idea of there being some happy middle ground and I really want to find that place. I think a masters in non-profit management may be one way for me to go. I think it would allow me to do admin. work (read better paying) in environments that I enjoy. Or maybe I should strengthen my technical skills (read move into a male dominated field). I really don’t know the answer and I spend way too much time at the bureau of labor statistics site looking at growth projections.

    I would also like to add that I have known quite a few former practicing lawyers. I know some who stayed in jobs that they absolutely hated just to pay off their law school debt. And I know one housing rights lawyer who loves his job but makes a very small fraction of what his school mates earn.

    I hear you on the connection between the pursuit of career happiness and relative economic privilege. Although, when I was at a point in my life when I had to accept food donations, I still felt this way. I was raised in a working class home, by a functionally illiterate mother, and am the only member of my extended family (poor and working class) to go to college, and that is including my younger cousins. I was raised to believe that the pay check is the most important thing about a job, but I have different ideas.

  25. juju — sounds like you have some good ideas on ways to combine both your objectives.

    I think another way to look at it is similar to what you say about your husband — pursuing a well-paying route doesn’t close off social justice work. Most well-paying skillsets have pro bono options. Business — helping fund and and counsel startup ventures by low-income women. Law — pro bono work, in all kinds of environments. High tech, eg web development — doing occasional pro bono work for social justice orgs to help their online outreach. If you have these convictions, you’ll make it work. Sometimes 2-5 hours a week and a nice check every six months are more meaningful than having great intentions but getting overwhelmed by debt and family responsibility.

    So I guess one thing to figure out at the outset is — do you feel strongly about having your main job be one that has public interest aspects, or do you want to find a high-paying main gig with enough time flexibility (they are out there) to do meaningful outside work?

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