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Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

bloomberg.com

101–110 of 309 posts

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#101
post #3

I find this fairly astounding. The typical stay-at-home parent is the mother and while it's getting closer to parity I don't think it's anywhere near even. For that reason alone I would expect more men in the work force. What are men doing if not working? On disability? Homeless? Retiring earlier?

My gut says prison.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On average, there is no hourly pay gap for unmarried women and men without kids. After they get married, there is an hourly salary gap, and this gap is even larger for married parents. As hours worked per day increase, the hourly pay rate also increases and married men spend much more time at their jobs (on average). Hourly pay also increases as experience increases. Married men with children spend more time at their…

This is the same reason I see trotted out by companies looking to defend gender imbalances; but the real issue is that the higher up you go in a profession, the less likely women are to be promoted. Even without kids. And these days in the US, "women with children" only get a few weeks off when they have children before having to return to work. Suggesting the difference in career outcomes is due to this time is ill-…

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Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#103
post #80

The labor force participation rates for men and women are currently at 69.2% and 57.7% respectively. They arbitrarily exclude farming positions but cite mining, logging, manufacturing, transportation, and warehouse roles traditionally occupied by men. This article doesn't really seem to paint a full or accurate picture.

So the total labor force participation rate is ... 126.9% ? edit: ok, ok, I got confused with the wording, I get it, you can stop hammering with downvotes. I'll leave the above up as my mark of shame.

69.2% of all men are in the labor force, and 57.7% of all women are in the labor force.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#104
post #20
post #3

I find this fairly astounding. The typical stay-at-home parent is the mother and while it's getting closer to parity I don't think it's anywhere near even. For that reason alone I would expect more men in the work force. What are men doing if not working? On disability? Homeless? Retiring earlier?

Depressed, committing suicide or just doing nothing. But apparently nobody cares.

> Depressed, committing suicide or just doing nothing. But apparently nobody cares.

We've had a decade+ of men being told they're useless oppressors, who've earned nothing for themselves, whose "time is up", and that they haven't a place in the future. Couple that with the loss of shared identity in general, the breakdown of the family, the bias in the divorce process, the disappearance of purposeful work and more and it's no surprise that we're in the situation we're in now.

The ever-changing "ideals" and "values" we're building modern society on are as brittle as a house of cards.

A note: I'm a happily married man with a career I enjoy and am optimistic for my own future, so the above isn't coming from some sense of ingrained / developed resentment, merely observation.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#105
post #3

I find this fairly astounding. The typical stay-at-home parent is the mother and while it's getting closer to parity I don't think it's anywhere near even. For that reason alone I would expect more men in the work force. What are men doing if not working? On disability? Homeless? Retiring earlier?

Keep in mind, the US population is 51% female. So there is still a higher percentage of employed males vs employed females.

There are ~5% more males by birth, ~100% more males by Visa, and ~40% more males by illegal immigration.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#106
post #80

The labor force participation rates for men and women are currently at 69.2% and 57.7% respectively. They arbitrarily exclude farming positions but cite mining, logging, manufacturing, transportation, and warehouse roles traditionally occupied by men. This article doesn't really seem to paint a full or accurate picture.

I doubt the exclusion of farming positions is arbitrary, the area is full of self/family employment and illegal employment that probably caused the exclusion. It does paint a false narrative though.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#107
post #60
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit that I haven't read much on the subject, but it feels to me that, at least in American society, it has long been considered more acceptable for men to have various social arrangements than for women. My impression is that it's considered far more acceptable for a man to be working and unmarried well past the average marriage age than for a woman. Compare the words "bachelor" and "spinster."

That's very true. We definitely are more lenient towards people in different ways depending on their gender, and there are a lot of relaxed social expectations that men have compared to women. Still though, I think there are dimensions of this where this is less true, perhaps in ways that men are expected to seem "confident" or "strong" or "independent" which I think can be stiffing. The typical men's section of a cl…

>perhaps in ways that men are expected to seem "confident" or "strong" or "independent" which I think can be stiffing.

Yep, and women demand this too: many women's dating profiles talk about how they want a guy who's "confident but not cocky", who "makes a plan" for dates, who "takes the lead", etc. Basically, American women want hyper-masculine men who look like George Clooney (when younger), but then they sit around complaining about "toxic masculinity" and how they're mistreated by men.

>The typical men's section of a clothing store normalizes a lot more conservative wardrobes compared to women.

Men's fashion is truly horrible compared to women's fashion. Men basically have the choice of either a stuffy suit that look like it hasn't changed in a century and is completely impractical, or baggy pants and a baggy hoody. Women get all kinds of choices in clothes, including lots which show off their bodies, while men's clothes are basically designed to hide our bodies completely and look as boring as possible. I guess that's helpful if you're fat, but if you're athletic and toned, it's really not.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#108
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one knows exactly why this is happening, though declining demand for low-skill work seems to be a factor. What happens as this continues to decline?

Not sure, but historically large numbers of unemployed young men has not been a good thing for societal stability.

India and China both have a problem with large numbers of unemployed or under employed young men. I bring that up because recently there has been lots of talk about WWIII, but many people say that China, for example, would stay out of it. But, what if they saw it as a solution to their abundance of young men problem? Yikes.

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#109
post #80

The labor force participation rates for men and women are currently at 69.2% and 57.7% respectively. They arbitrarily exclude farming positions but cite mining, logging, manufacturing, transportation, and warehouse roles traditionally occupied by men. This article doesn't really seem to paint a full or accurate picture.

Wait, so women make up the majority of the non-farm labor force, but the labor force participation rate is 12% higher for men? How does that work? Are 12% of men either in the military or on disability? Or what?

Re: Women now make up the majority of the U.S. labor force

#110
post #69

"[Women] make up 13.8% of mining and logging jobs, up from 12.6% a year earlier..." That seems like a huge recomposition in a single year. What caused this?

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics: "All employees"

So I'll hazard a guess about a change in what part of those mining and logging industries hired: less manual workers and more office ones as they get consolidated into bigger conglomerates. But I may be wrong.

If I read this correctly: https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm in 2018 you had

  - 2.6% women for logging workers
  - 5% for Mining machine operators
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