Don’t Call Women the Richer Sex!

Teaser:

Examines the perception that women are outpacing men in the workforce.

Editorial:

Are women really on track to become “the richer sex” and replace men as primary breadwinners in American families, as recent headlines suggest [2]? Not quite. The notion that women are outpacing men on the job [3] has become a popular media narrative over the past few years. But the data on which it’s based don’t hold up.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that, in fact, we’re in the middle of a “mancovery”—while women are slipping backwards. Between June 2009 and June 2011, women lost close to 300,000 jobs, while men gained more than 800,000. “We've never seen a recovery like this,” the National Women's Law Center's Joan Entmacher told NPR, “where two years into the recovery women are doing so much worse than men and are actually losing ground.”

Still, the popular perception is that women are soaring. Much is made of the “fact” that more than 40 percent of American women are their family’s breadwinner. In her recentTime magazine cover piece [4] (adapted fromher new book [2], The Richer Sex), for example, journalist Liza Mundy cites 2009 Bureau of Labor Statistics data saying that one in four women outearn their spouses. This claim was picked up by scores of media outlets.

But look a bit more closely at the numbers, and the picture doesn’t seem so rosy for women. Which women are advancing? Andwhich men are backsliding? The answers are important if you are going to talk about who’s getting “rich.”

[...]

Source:

The Daily Beast

URL:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/28/don-t-call-women-the-richer-sex.html

Date:

April 30, 2012

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Advancing Women's Leadership [5]
Business & Entrepreneurship [6]
Diversity & Leadership [7]
Barriers & Opportunities [8]
Glass Ceilings & Barriers [9]
Employment & Unemployment [10]
Disparities [11]
Diversity & Inclusion [12]
Leadership in Government, Politics, and Business [13]
Women & Girl Heads of Household [14]
Work - Life Balance [15]
Economic Development & Security [16]
Equality, Diversity & Inclusion [17]
Women's & Girls' Leadership [18]
Media Roundup [19]
Economic Security [20]

Links:
[1] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/28/don-t-call-women-the-richer-sex.html
[2] http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/20/the-richer-sex-how-women-became-the-new-breadwinners.html
[3] http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/15/working-women-s-fantasies.html
[4] http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20120326,00.html
[5] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/113
[6] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/101
[7] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/190
[8] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/122
[9] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/187
[10] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/130
[11] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/153
[12] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/114
[13] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/184
[14] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/137
[15] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/134
[16] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/103
[17] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/106
[18] http://www.ncrw.org/taxonomy/term/110
[19] http://www.ncrw.org/category/media-roundup
[20] http://www.ncrw.org/category/economic-stimulus-package