economy

I’ve been rather quiet around here these past few and am soon to jump back on the horse (or in the saddle, or however that phrase goes). Just wanted to throw out a quick one, courtesy of the CCF listserv, from today’s WSJ:

Money Matters Can Make or Break Marriages by Jeff D. Opdyke

Even in the best of times, couples regularly argue about finances. But at this juncture, when so many Americans are feeling stung and frustrated by a weak economy, a housing-price collapse, and a stock-market crash, it’s particularly critical that newlyweds — and even long-time spouses — are on the same page when it comes to money.

Sigh.  Note to world: though Marco’s job situation is still precarious, we are going strong, in our 9th month of marriage.  I chalk it up to open communication, giving each other lots of space in which to unfold, and of course our kitten, Tula, who keeps it real.

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Check out this article in the LA Times, Recession Hits Male Workers More, which offers all sorts of theories about the big gender split we’re seeing:

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.

To hear economist [Mark] Perry tell it, two factors far outweigh those theories.

This recession started with a crash in the housing market, and construction is about as male-dominated as it gets: 88%, Perry says. Manufacturing also took a dive: It’s 70% male. The male bastions of the financial-service sector got whacked too: Testosterone-heavy trading desks ain’t what they used to be, post credit crunch.

Meanwhile, practically the only major sectors holding their own are education and healthcare, which run 77% female combined. “Those differences account for quite a bit of it,” Perry said.

The other big difference: higher education.

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. Because unemployment among college graduates stands at 4.1%, less than half the rate of high-school grads, those sheepskins count.

And with so many more men getting pink slips — a misnomer, these days — women will make up a rising share of the labor force.

The article goes on to cite our friends Catalyst and others, noting that even with women making such dramatic gains, their numbers in business leadership are hardly skyrocketing.  Turns out neither higher education nor the economic devastation of traditional male strongholds are making all that much difference when it comes to cracking the glass ceiling.  Yet.

(Thanks to Catalyst for the heads up!)

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My latest at Recessionwire.com is now up: A Security of Her Own. In this one, I unveil my current plans for dreaming big…and face up to the fact that, given our respective industries,  if financial stability is going to happen any time soon, it might be up to me.

So check this out:

Tonight at 6:30pm, Legal Momentum and Cornell University are bringing together leading lights Linda Hirshman, Heather Boushey, Mimi Abramowitz, and Irasema Garza to discuss the next frontier in women’s rights: Building Economic Equality and Security in a Time of Crisis. This panel event is free and open to the public.  Register here.

Cornell University ILR
16 East 34th Street, 6th Floor (between Madison and Fifth)
New York, NY 10016

I sadly cannot go but if any NYC-based GWP reader is interested in attending and either liveblogging for us or doing a post about it tomorrow, we’d all be thrilled!

More:

The current economic crisis has thrown the long-term impacts of women’s economic inequality into relief. Although women make up nearly half the workforce, they hold the vast majority of minimum and below-minimum wage and part-time jobs. Now, more than a year into a recession that has claimed millions of jobs in traditionally male-dominated industries, women are emerging as the de facto breadwinners, often struggling to support their families on low-wage salaries. While the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the FY 2010 budget promise major changes in labor and employment, it is not at all clear that these programs directly address the unique impact the recession is having on women.

The “Women’s Economic Equality: the Next Frontier for Women’s Rights” panelists will give an overview of the current economic landscape for women and families; will review policy initiatives to address the challenges confronting women; and set forth the case for a significant change in focus for the women’s rights movement toward an agenda focused on economic equality and personal security.

If you want to liveblog or post on this for us, please post a comment here or email me at deborah (at) girlwpen (dot) com.  Thanks!

My latest at Recessionwire.com is now up: Love in the Time of Layoff: Her Expendable Career. I go all politico over subsidized childcare in this one, so please check it out, spread the link, leave comments, etc! It’s very Girl w/Pen-nish, this time.

Can someone puh-lease get all the Wall Street shills like this one off my t.v.? As the economic horizons look darker and darker, economists at Janet Gornick and Pam Stone’s awesome work/family mini-conference at the Eastern Sociological Society meeting in Baltimore this weekend presented, by way of contrast, really nice work.

At the concluding panel, “Public Policy and Working Families: Providing, Supporting, and Equalizing Access,” Heather Boushey (Center for American Progress), Chai Feldblum (Workplace Flexibility 2010), Heidi Hartmann (Institute for Women’s Policy Research) and John Schmitt (Center for Economic and Policy Research) discussed horizons for work and family policy. And they really took Obama adviser Rahm Emanuel’s advice to “never waste a perfectly good crisis” to heart. All four demonstrated that the particulars of the current downturn plus key demographic trends will help us to move work/family policy issues higher up on Obama’s and Congress’s priorities list, even in these hard times.

Here are some key points:

*Four out of five jobs lost since December 2007 are men’s. This means that women are increasingly sole breadwinners in partnered families as well as in single-mom families. As Heather Boushey argued in a recent paper for CAP, this shift in family relations and the workplace makes work/family issues more salient as the economic crisis deepens. Boushey encourages us to focus on the implications of a “woman, making 78 cents on the dollar, now supporting her family.” More than ever, we gotta have pay equity. And here’s the crisis-as-opportunity piece:
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My latest, “Of Uncertain Times,” now up over at Recessionwire.com!

Ah, uncertainty…sigh.

According to Kimberly Palmer in this week’s US News & World Report, research from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that once you control for divorce and the proportion of young marriages, then an increase in the unemployment rate increases fertility, suggesting that recessions can lead to mini-baby booms. Hmm…

(Thanks to CCF for the heads up)

…what of the youth shaped by what some are already calling the Great Recession? Will a publication looking back from 2030 damn them with such faint praise? Will they marry younger, be satisfied with stable but less exciting jobs? Will their children mock them for reusing tea bags and counting pennies as if this paycheck were the last? At the very least, they will reckon with tremendous instability, just as their Depression forebears did.

This is an excerpt from a piece by Kate Zernike in Sunday’s Week in Review (always my favorite section!) about how these economic times will shape the generation just coming of age. In short, there were plenty of comparisons made to the tight-lipped, nose-to-the-grindstone depression-era babies—the grandparents who reuse tea bags and never buy lottery tickets. The author and her experts wondered, will the kids of today become stingy, safe, and square tomorrow?

I’m skeptical. As I research my new book, a collection of ten profiles of people under 35 doing interesting social change work, I’m coming across a very different trend. Tough economic times seems to have made young people creative and very practical—a stunning and hopeful combination. It’s not that they aren’t feeling the burn. It’s harder than it has been in decades to start a non-profit and get funding, for example. But here’s the thing: today’s youngest and most cutting edge thinkers aren’t really starting non-profits or trending towards traditional methods of making the world more just. They’re creating hybrid media companies, public-private ventures, drinking clubs, and secret societies. They’re rejecting charity models and trying to figure out how to get folks to align their own self-interests with altruistic causes. They’re thinking locally and globally simultaneously.

They’re not taking huge financial risks—either personally or with the funding they bring in, but that’s not keeping their philosophies or experiments “safe,” as the NYT predicts. It’s just motivating them to be incredibly creative, really resourceful, and organic in their interventions. What a silver lining, heh?

I’m THRILLED to announce that my nationally touring (whohoo!) intergenerational panel, “Women, Girls, and Ladies” will be appearing on MARCH 18 at the 92nd Street Y in Tribeca.

For a taste, you can check out the piece up today in honor of International Women’s Day over at the Women’s Media Center site, where Gloria Feldt (67), Courtney Martin (29), Elizabeth Hines (33) and I (40 + 3 weeks) each share personal reflections on the economic crisis from our generational vantage point and comment on some of the unfinished feminist business of economic recovery.  Hint: It’s a lot about work and life, life and work, work and life….

For more on the March 18th panel, see our WGLs blog or the 92nd Street Y.