In Downturn's Wake, Women Hold Half of U.S. Jobs

From the Wall Street Journal | Nov 12, 2009

Households That Could Afford to Have One Spouse Stay Home Find Roles Upended by Layoffs in Male-Dominated Industries

By KELLY EVANS

Jeff
and Vicki Grenz celebrated their 25th anniversary on Sept. 12, 2007.
The date marked another milestone for the California couple: Ms. Grenz
went back to work.

After giving birth to the second of four children, Ms. Grenz, now 47
years old, stopped working as a campaign consultant full time in 1993.
"Every time I had a big meeting or had to go out of town, someone had
an ear infection," she said. So Mr. Grenz supported the family through
his business as a custom home builder, while his wife stayed home.

Bittersweet Gains

Steep layoffs and soaring unemployment among men underlie women's new position on the cusp on the majority of the work force.

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Office
workers eat lunch on a Washington, D.C., park bench in 1963. For the
first time, woman hold almost half the nation's jobs, up from less than
35% of the jobs in the 1960s.

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The
recession and real-estate collapse have taken that option away from
women such as Ms. Grenz who could afford not to work during the boom.
Thanks to steep layoffs and soaring unemployment among men, more women
are returning to the work force.

While Ms. Grenz had taken on occasional campaign consulting projects
over the years, she hadn't planned on re-entering the work force so
soon. "I always assumed I would go back, just not when I had a toddler
at home," said Ms. Grenz, whose youngest was 2 years old when a sharp
slowdown in her husband's home-building work sent her back to work two
years ago as a community-relations manager for a local engineering firm.

The composition of the nation's work force is approaching an
unprecedented benchmark. Due in part to deep layoffs of men, women are
poised to become the majority of workers for the first time. As of
September, women held 49.9% of the nation's jobs, excluding farm
workers and the self-employed, a rise of 1.2 percentage points from
their 48.7% share when the recession began in December 2007. In 1970,
women held 35% of jobs.

Deep cuts in male-heavy sectors like construction and manufacturing
have left unemployment for men age 16 and over at 11.4% as of October
-- a quarter-century high. Joblessness among women is lower, at 8.8%,
as employment in female-heavy sectors like education and health care
has remained steadier.

There is evidence that women's growing representation in the labor
force stems not only from men losing their jobs but from women who
previously didn't work seeking employment. Since the recession began,
the number of women age 16 and over in the labor force -- which
includes both the employed and those who are looking for work -- has
expanded by 300,000 to 71.7 million. Meanwhile, the number of men
working or seeking work has dropped by 123,000 to 82.28 million,
according to the Department of Labor.

"I think we are at a pivotal moment," said Arlie Hochschild, a
professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who has written
several books on work-life balance. For many households, it used to be
that "she worked because she wanted to," said Ms. Hochschild. "Now,
she's working because she has to."

Despite households' increasing reliance on the female paycheck, women still earn markedly less than men.

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"
But let's get rid of that pay disparity before we uncork the champagne.
"

- Julie Fordyce

Women
are either the sole earner or make as much as or more than their male
spouses in four out of 10 U.S. families with children under 18, said
Heather Boushey, a senior economist with the Center for American
Progress, a liberal Washington think tank. Yet the median earnings of
full-time working women in 2008, the first year of the recession, fell
by 1.9% to $35,745, while earnings for men declined 1% to $46,367,
according to the Commerce Department.

Anne Core, 44, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md., went back to work
full-time in April after her husband, a radio personality, was laid off
in a bout of cost-cutting along with several hundred others. Ms. Core
had been working part-time as a bookkeeper in the past couple of years
after stepping down from her full-time job running the local Chamber of
Commerce a decade ago to raise her daughter, now 15. She expected she
would return to full-time work at some point, but her husband's layoff
was "the motivating factor," she said.

She found a position as a director of marketing at a law firm.
"We've swapped roles a bit," she said. "Now he's the one doing
part-time work and picking her up after school."

But it hasn't been a perfect switch. For one, her income isn't
enough to replace what he used to earn. "We have less money now, we eat
at home a lot more," she said. "We used to go away for a week between
Christmas and New Year's, and this year we're just doing a day trip."
She also has lost the time she used to have for friends or to have
lunch with her 70-year-old mother.

Across the country, day-care centers and after-school programs say
their enrollment is rising -- a factor many attribute in part to the
increase in working moms.

"We're up about 12% from last year" in terms of enrollment, said
Susan Leger-Ferraro, who founded Little Sprouts Schools and serves as
president of the Lawrence, Mass., child-care provider with 11 locations
and an enrollment of about 1,500 children. "I haven't seen that kind of
increase in 27 years of business."

"About two-thirds of our clubs are serving more kids this year,"
said Jan Still-Lindeman, spokeswoman for the Boys & Girls Clubs of
America, which serves about 4.5 million children across the country. In
West Phoenix, for example, the local club last week served an average
of 220 children per day, compared with 150 per day last year, according
to Josh Stine, the local director.

"In this economy we have more mothers working, taking on second jobs
or going to night school," said Mr. Stine. He added that the club's low
cost -- membership is just $30 a year -- and on-site meals also are
driving enrollment. "Last year, we were serving about 50 meals a
night," he said. "This year, it's close to 80."

Stephanie Coontz, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia,
Wash., who has written extensively about the history of marriage, says
that the shift in spousal roles in some families could have a lasting
impact. "The silver lining here may be that men now get a little more
experience under their belt in terms of actually being the experts at
home," she said. "When the economy recovers, we may find a little boost
towards men and women sharing these roles."

In the Grenz household in Sacramento, Calif., it is Mr. Grenz who
has taken on more of the household duties while also trying to rebuild
his business. Their new arrangement has resulted in home-cooked dinners
being replaced by frozen pizzas and other quick meals such as burritos
and quesadillas the kids can make themselves. Some extracurricular
activities, such as traveling soccer teams, have also been dropped.

"I enjoy being a positive role model for my children," Ms. Grenz
said, referring to her career. But, she said, "I can't sneak off and
have coffee or lunch with a friend -- even my parents I don't see as
much of as I did."

She added: "The hardest part has been missing the little things you did before that made your life wonderful," she said.

"It was a luxury for her to be able to take a decade off," Jeff
Grenz said of his wife. "When we look at the future, the way we have to
rebuild our retirement accounts and rebuild my business, I don't think
that will ever happen again."

Write to Kelly Evans at kelly.evans@wsj.com