[lbo-talk] The new disparity: women vastly outnumber men

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Oct 17 18:05:28 PDT 2009


On Oct 17, 2009, at 7:29 PM, Joseph Catron wrote:


> This may prove to be a situation where everyone on the list who
> *actually*
> knows anything about economics yells at me, but:
>
> Didn't the near-doubling of the labor pool have a lot to do with those
> falling wages according to a basic supply and demand model?
>
> I mean, how could it not?

It's a factor, but: 1) the labor pool didn't double - the employment/ population ratio rose from 55% in 1950 to 64% at the 2000 peak - it's now 59%; 2) men's labor market participation fell as women's rose, partly offsetting the increase (81% of men were employed in 1950, vs. 72% at the labor market peak in 2000, a fall of 9 points; for women, it was 31% vs. 58%, a rise of 27 points - both have since fallen); 3) men and women partly inhabit different labor markets, with different occupations and lifetime patterns of work; and 4) a growing economy can accommodate an ever-larger workforce.



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