More voices worry that job losses are falling disproportionately on women - Building Gender Balanced Business

• The discussion won’t end: Is the economic crisis costing women more or less jobs than men?

• The evidence (and reasoning) is quite clear in places like East Asia, where exports, often largely made by women, are plunging. But in the West, it is not so clear. US women seem to be losing fewer jobs than men, in absolute and relative terms, to the point where they may now be the majority of the workforce. In the UK, a labour report said redundancies were hitting women hardest, perhaps in part because of new laws that might lead employers towards shedding female employee, but subsequent findings have indicated otherwise.

• Now a similar split is rising in the US, with Sharon Freedberg, professor of social work at Lehman College, saying, “The statistics don’t always show the whole picture.”

• Freedberg is worried about “a hidden sector of women who have been working in jobs that aren’t as reportable, like nannies or household help, caretakers for the elderly. Sometimes these jobs aren’t paid on the books.”

• Labor economist William Spriggs, a member of US President Barack Obama’s transition team, said that part-timers are particularly vulnerable to downsizing, and more women than men work part-time.

The Metro article