Nancy Folbre is an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Measured in terms of absolute job loss, men bore the brunt of the Great Recession, hence the term “mancession.” On the other hand, men have fared better than women in regaining jobs during the slight rebound sometimes called the recovery.
Perspectives from expert contributors.
Perspectives from expert contributors.
Many people – even those who live alone – share a portion of their earnings or devote unpaid hours of work to family members, including children and others who are dependent as result of age, sickness, disability or unemployment. Measures of economic hardship should take responsibility for dependents into account.
Women tend to be more vulnerable in this respect than men, primarily because they are more likely to take both financial and direct responsibility for the care of children.
In 2010, according to Census data, about 23 percent of children under the age of 18 lived with mothers but not fathers, about 3 percent with fathers but not mothers and 4 percent with neither parent. In 2007 (the latest year for which data are available), slightly more than half of all custodial parents had formal child support agreements or awards, and less than half of those received the full amount they were due.
Even mothers receiving support from fathers tend to take more responsibility for meeting family needs, intensifying the experience of economic insecurity.
A recent report issued by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research assessed some of the most stressful consequences of a high unemployment rate, based on a nationwide telephone survey conducted last fall in conjunction with the Rockefeller Survey of Economic Security.
The report emphasizes the effects of unemployment on families rather than individuals. More than one-third of respondents reported that they or someone else in their household experienced unemployment during the previous two years. The percentage reached almost one-half for black and Hispanic respondents, and more than half for single mothers.
Unemployment made daily life more difficult for almost everyone touched by it. Still, the gender differences are striking, even among married couples.
Married mothers reported that they were more likely to cut back on household spending than married fathers (80 percent, compared with 66 percent). There was also a noticeable, though not statistically significant, difference between the percentages of married mothers and fathers who reported problems paying their rent or mortgage (31 percent, compared with 26 percent).
Health care anxieties were intense: married mothers were more likely than married fathers to report that they had trouble getting or paying for medical care for themselves or family (34 percent, compared with 17 percent) and that they were worried about the possibility that their employer would cut back health care coverage or increase its costs (43 percent, compared with 34 percent).
Whether single or married, mothers are more directly affected than fathers by cutbacks in public child care provisions resulting from state budget shortfalls and the withdrawal of federal stimulus funds. A new report from the National Women’s Law Center estimates that families in 37 states are worse off under one or more key child care policies in 2011 than they were in 2010.
This emerging pattern of economic insecurity could affect the size and shape of the gender gap in voter preferences. Red may be the Republican color, but over all, pink tilts Democratic.
According to exit polls, unmarried women have typically given more support to Democratic candidates than have married women.
In hard times, however, this “marriage gap” may diminish.
