A recent article in the New York Times, entitled “As Layoffs Surge, Women May Pass Men in Job Force”, reports that with recent layoffs predominantly affecting men [1], women are poised to soon outnumber men in the workforce. [2]

I think this article is interesting (especially because I hadn’t realized that there were almost equal numbers of men and women in the workforce today) and want to highlight a few points that struck me:

1. Even though women are approaching equal numbers in the workforce, they are still only earning 80 cents for each dollar of their male counterparts’ income.

2. The jobs women have are not necessarily as good as the ones men have (i.e., women are more likely to be in part-time jobs without health insurance or unemployment insurance, and, in some cases, sick days).

3. Even as women become the sole breadwinners in many homes, they are likely to remain responsible for most domestic responsibilities at home. [3]

Although the article doesn’t paint a particularly rosy picture for women today, the fact that the proportion of women in the workplace is rising gives me a sense of hope that men and women will soon begin to better appreciate each others’ value in the workplace, and that this understanding will then give rise to better pay, better health care, better hours, and more flexibility in general for both men and women.   I am curious to hear others’ thoughts about this article and the topic in general.

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1. The article indicates that 82% of recent layoffs have befallen men who are heavily represented in distressed industries like manufacturing and construction.

2. As of November, 2008 women held 49.1 percent of the nation’s jobs according to nonfarm payroll data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

3. The article reports that “[o]n average, employed women devote much more time to child care than employed men do,” according to recent data from a government survey.