Women and Jobs in Recessions

about 14 percent of its workers at the start of the
latest downturn, lost 6,000 employees but showed
a nominal increase in the number of women em-
ployees. As in construction, the vast majority of

women are office workers, w!

the blue-collar

workers, for whom demand is more volatile, are
overwhelmingly men. In the 1981-82 recession,

women held 11 percent of the jobs in minii
panies at the start of the recession but on!

ing com-
ly lost 4

percent of the approximately 155,000 jobs elimi-

nated, In earlier recessions, employment
ing showed little movement, or increased.

Manufacturing, the third component
goods-producing sector, has shown cycl

in min-
it of the
ical em-

ployment losses for men and women approxi-
mately in proportion to their shares of employ-

Table 3. _ Industry distribution of employed women, December
1969 and July 1990
[Numbers in thousands, seasonally adjusted]
Industry December 1969 July 1990
division
_ Number__| Percent | Number | Percent
Tota nonfarm 26,024 100 | 52,069 100
Goods-producing 5,874 22 6.948 13
37 0 96 0
180 1 553 1
5,657 ral 6,295, 12
Service-producing.......... 20,150 73 | 45,125 87
Transportation,
‘communications,
public utilities . . we 998 4 1,705 3
Wholesale trade. - = 924 4 1895 4
Retail trade te 5,036 at 10,458 20
Finance, insurance,
and real estate 1,866 7 4,247 8
Services . 6113 23 33
Government 5,256 18 13

Table 4,

Job gain or loss for men and women on nonfarm
payrolls in the 1990-91 recession, by industry

{In thousands, seasonally adjusted)

Change from July 1990 to March 1991
Industry
Total Women Men
Total nonfarm - 1,397 126 =1211
Total nontarm excluding

temporary census workers . . 1,143 ~32 — 4111
Goods-producing fee ~ 1,006 ~ 208 - 798
Mining... -8 1 -7
Construction........... - 382 -13 -370
Manutacturing -619 ~197 422
Service-producing .............2. - 331 +82 413

Transportation, communications,
public utilities... i -31 -3 -28
Wholesale trade - 86 —28 ~58
Retail trade : ~ 286 -114 +172

Finance, insurance, and
real estate... : -22 -4 -18
Services +159 +209 -50
Government. . : ~65 +20 -85
‘Government excluding
temporary census workers... . +129 +114 +15
30 Monthly Labor Review July 1993

ment in the division. Men hold about two-thirds of
manufacturing jobs, and have been affected by
about two-thirds of the layoffs.

In contrast to the massive declines in the goods-
producing sector, the service-producing sector
gained large numbers of jobs—up to 1.3 million—
in the first three recessions since 1964. In the last
two recessions, when service-sector jobs were
lost, the larger loss occurred during the most recent
downturn, in which about one-fourth of the overall
employment decline took place in the service-pro-
ducing sector.” (See chart 2.) Although women
held slightly more than half of the jobs in this sec-
tor at the start of the recession, they gained 80,000
jobs in the sector as men lost 400,000 service-pro-
ducing jobs.

This disproportionate change in the number of
women employees is partially attributable to the
fact that the fastest-growing industries in the ser-
vice-producing sector employ extremely high pro-
portions of women. Some of these industries re-
spond to demand that does not decrease in
recessions. Health services, with employment that
is more than 80 percent female (compared to ap-
proximately 55 percent for the service-producing
sector as a whole), gained about a quarter of a mil-
lion jobs during the 1990-91 recession, continuing
its outstandingly strong growth trend of the past 30
years.* Women filled approximately 85 percent of
net new jobs, slightly more than their share of the
industry’s employment. While all the industries
making up private-sector health services expanded
during the recession, two component industries
showed especially strong growth. Hospitals, with
employment that is 80 percent female, contributed
70,000 jobs, with 60,000 of them going to women.
Nursing and personal care facilities (such as
nursing homes) added 60,000 employees, includ-
ing 50,000 women. Employment in this industry is
more than 85 percent female.

During the recession, privately owned social
services (both nonprofit and for-profit) and private
education gained 75,000 and 45,000 jobs, respec-
tively, and filled the majority of these positions
with women. The largest component of the private
education industry is private colleges and universi-
ties. Social services includes such activities as
counseling, operation of community centers, job
training, child day care, and residential care of the
elderly, children, and others with limitations on
their ability to care for themselves.

Certain service-sector industries did lose jobs
during the recession. Surprisingly, perhaps, deve!-
opments in these industries also had the net effect
of increasing the proportion of women among em-
ployees in the sector. Engineering and manage-
ment services, an industry with employment that is
about 55 percent male, lost 50,000 employees, of
whom 40,000 were men.

j
j


sus is a noncyclical event that may obscure cy
ments in employment series if its effects are not discounted.

* David R. H. Hiles, “Health services: the real jobs ma-
chine,” Monthly Labor Review, November 1992, p. 4.

* Industry sources.

" Max L. Carey and Kim L, Hazelbaker, “Employment
growth in the temporary help industry,” Monthly Labor Re-
view, April 1986, p. 38.

"U.S. Industrial Outlook 1991 (U.S. Department of
Commerce, 1991), p. 52-4.

"U.S. Industrial Outlook 1992 (U.S. Department of
Commerce, 1992), p. 53-4.

"8 Gene Koretz, “Technology Is Fueling Retail Productiv-
ity, but Slowing Job Gains,” Business Week, May 10, 1993,
p. 16.

Joseph Weber, “It’s ‘Like Somebody Had Shot the Post-
man’,” Business Week, Jan, 13, 1992, p. 82.

5 A recent internal analysis of the Current Employment
Statistics (payroll) survey’s sample and estimates of women
employees showed consistently favorable results in regard
to the quality of the statistics. The share of the universe

sampled for women workers was 29 percent as of February
1993. Some 91.1 percent of usable reports from individual
establishments contain data on women workers. These data
rarely have identifiable errors, move in conjunction with
other employment ficlds, and show no sign of being ap-
proximated or determined subjectively, as they are reported
in complete detail and show expected minor month-to-
month fluctuations.

The estimates of women employees by industry are con-
sistent in the sense that the estimates for a specific industry
or industry group show little variation over a short span of
time. The estimates show plausible cyclical and long-term
trends. Revisions between preliminary and final estimates
are minimal.

‘All the series that are aggregated to create the total
nonfarm seasonally adjusted series for women workers have
good diagnostic scores on the battery of statistical tests used
to judge the acceptability of seasonal adjustment. These diag-
nostic tests also indicate that the original, or unadjusted, se-
ries are free of excessive irregular movement, and in nearly
all cases have strong cyclical and long-term movement in
relation to other types of movement. These results from diag-
nostic tests of seasonal adjustment imply that the estimates
are suitable for analysis in terms of the business cycle.

Monthly Labor Review July 1993 35


Women and Jobs in Recessions

sector industries are key in explaining why
women were affected differently by the recession
of the 1990's in comparison to most preceding
ones. These industries were hit much harder in the
latest downtum than in most earlier ones, and both
men and women were hurt by the cuts. Employ-
ment gains by women in other industries could not
quite offset the losses that women suffered in
these industries and others, such as manufactur-
ing, in which women normally lose jobs during a
recession, (See chart 3 for a comparison of the
1990-91 recession with the 1973-75 recession,
which was fairly typical of post-1964 recessions
in terms of net job loss by industry and gender.)
In the 1990-91 recession, the services divi-
sion—one of the six divisions of the service-pro-
ducing sector, along with retail trade, government,
and the three smaller divisions shown in table 4—
was weakest among all divisions in comparison to
its own gain or loss during preceding recessions.
Despite the increases in health care, social ser-
vices, and other industries, certain remaining in-
dustries in the division showed considerable and
unusual declines that left this division much
weaker than in earlier recessions. Services gained
160,000 jobs in the last recession, but had added
about a quarter of a million to a half-million jobs

during each downturn of the 1970’s and 1980's.
The personnel supply industry had the largest
employment loss of any industry in the services
division. This industry includes employment
agencies and the increasingly important help sup-
ply industry, which consists primarily of compa-
nies that provide temporary workers to client
firms. Personnel supply lost about 95,000 jobs
during the 1990-91 recession; three-quarters of
these jobs had been held by women. In earlier re-
cessions, this rapidly growing industry was much
smaller and showed relatively small employment
declines, averaging less than half of its most recent
cyclical loss. Declines in employment in this in-
dustry reflect the troubles of the client industries.
In this case, demand from the finance, insurance,
and real estate division, one of the heaviest users of
temporary help, fell off particularly steeply.’ Other
major markets for temporary help include ser-
vices, manufacturing, wholesale trade, and retail
trade." All of these divisions except manufactur-
ing were more profoundly affected, in terms of de-
clines in their own employment, in this latest re-
cession than in most earlier downturns since 1964.
Hotels, motels, and other lodging places, an-
other industry within the services division, lost
about 35,000 jobs in the recession and let go

Table 5. | Change in numbers of men and women on nonfarm payrolls in the five most recent recessions, by
selected industry group
[Numbers in thousands, seasonally adjusted]
Construction Manufacturing
Dates of recession Men Women Men Women
Number | Percent | Number | Percent | Number | Percent| Number| Percent) Number | Percent | Number | Percent

December 1969/

November 1970 . . -81 -2 ] 4 +6 |-1,155 | -8 | ~425 -8 +18 oa “ °
November 1973/

March 1975 -632 | -16 +4 +2 |~1,52 | -9 | -sa0 14 425 4 +29 | 43
January 1980/

July 1980 . . ~327 -5 “1 -790 | -5 | -325 ~5 | -39 4 2) 4
July 1981/

November 1982. ..... 7 -8 -9 -2 1,624 -12 — 559 -9 —170 -4 +20 +1
July 1980/

March 1991.2... -370 -8 | ~13 -2 | -422 | -3 | -197 -3 | -58 -1 2g | -1

Retail trade Services Government
Men Women Men Women Men Women
Number | Percent |Number | Percent | Number | Percent | Number | Percent | Number | Percent |Number | Percent

December 1969/ :

November 1970 + +2 | +61 4 +71] 4 | 4187 +3 | +168 +2 | +183 | 43
November 1973/

March 1975 —66 -1 +109 42 +76 + +547 +8 4251 +3 +470 +8
January 1980/

July 1980 ~143 ~2 | -109 -1 +107 | +1 | 4306 +3 +79 +t] ston fot
July 1981/

November 1982 ........, 100 -1 | +102 " +39 | 41 | 4455 +4 | -134 -2 | -172 |] -2
July 1990/

March 1991 ..... -172 -2 | -114 “1 -50 0 | +209 +1 [85 -1 +20 | 0

Nore: The recession dates are the turning points in the business cycle, as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

32 Monthly Labor Review July 1993



Finance, insurance, and real estate lost 20,000
jobs from July 1990 to March 1991. Although the
majority of employees in this industry are women,
they accounted for only about 15 percent of the
losses. This industry is experiencing a long-term
upward trend in its proportion of women employ-
ees. From November 1989 to July 1990, for ex-
ample—a period just preceding the recession and
of the same duration—this industry expanded by a
net total of 35,000 employees but added 40,000
women to its payrolls.

In government, women also fared vastly better
than men during the latest recession. While em-
ployment in this sector is split about evenly be-
tween men and women, women gained a net
20,000 jobs during the latest downtum while men
lost 85,000. These results were affected by the lay-
off of approximately 195,000 temporary decen-
nial census workers, most of whom were let go
during the first month of the recession. When the
influence of this special factor is discounted, gov-
emment gained 130,000 employees, including
about 115,000 women.

The exclusion of decennial census workers
calls for a deeper analysis of employment by sex in
the total nonfarm economy. If census workers are
excluded at the level of total payroll employment,
women lost only about 30,000 jobs (as opposed to

approximately 125,000 when census workers are
included), versus a reduction of 1.1 million among
men. However, the outcome for women was still
worse than in 3 of the 4 preceding recessions, when
women gained between 45,000 and 400,000 jobs
(excluding 1980 decennial census jobs).

The differing experiences of men and women
in government in the latest recession are primarily
attributable to developments in local government,
which contributed more than 80 percent of the
gains in government jobs. Local government
added 100,000 jobs during the recession, and ap-
proximately 80 percent of the additional jobs were
filled by women, although, on the whole, employ-
ment in local government is about 60 percent fe-
male. This pattem of women gaining dispropor-
tionate numbers of new jobs was established
before the recession. From November 1989 to
July 1990, for example, local government gained
225,000 jobs, and 85 percent of them were filled
by women. During the recession, most of the em-
ployment increase was in local school systems;
before the recession, growth was about evenly
split between education and other local agencies.

Why this recession was different

Developments in retail trade, wholesale trade, fi-
nance, personnel supply, and a few other service-

Chart 2. Employment in the goods-producing and service-producing sectors,
monthly data, January 1990-92
Jobs in Jobs In
thousands thousands
26,500 85,000
26,000 }- + 84,600
Service-producing
(right-hand ecale)
25,500 | -+| 84,000
25,000 + + 83,500
Goods-producing
24,500 | (left-hand scale) + 83,000
24,000 + + 82,500
23,600 + + 82,000
23,000 | + 81,600
+ +
° 4 1 1 1 J 1 1 1 1 1 4 L 1 1 1 1 L 1 1 1. 1 i 1 i ae °
dan Mar May July Sept. Nov Jan Mar May July Sept. Now J
1990 1981 ¥ y sep 182

Monthly Labor Review July 1993 31


Women and Jobs in Recessions

nineties. With one exception, the recessions from
1969 to 1982 left total employment in retail trade
relatively intact, and women with large gains. In
the most recent downturn, however, jobs in retail
trade declined by about 285,000, and women lost
more than 110,000 net jobs in retailing. (See table
5.) In the early 1990's, retailing was hurt by low
consumer confidence; risky expansion into new
malls and plazas; intense competition; and lever-
aged buyouts, which generally required compa-
nies to greatly increase their debt, and in turn con-
tributed to tight financial situations and even
failures among retailers. The increasingly wide-
spread use of electronic computing devices for
tasks such as inventory management also enabled
retail firms to trim jobs.'*

Employees in wholesale trade were also hit
harder in the latest recession than in most preced-
ing ones. In recessions from 1970 to 1980, whole-
sale trade had relatively small gains or losses in
employment. The industry then lost 150,000 jobs
in the 1981-82 recession and 85,000 jobs in the
1990-91 downturn. The loss of jobs in wholesal-
ing in the early nineties was partly attributable to
two factors aside from the business cycle. First,
significant productivity improvements have taken
place in wholesaling; fewer workers are needed to
conduct a given level of business. Second, con-
solidation in the industry has been encouraged, as
large customers increasingly deal almost exclu-
sively with a few large suppliers.'* This trend
eliminates business opportunities for smaller
firms. In the latest decline, women lost 30,000
jobs in wholesaling, while in the four previous re-
cessions, women at worst held ground and at best
gained 30,000 jobs. The increased proportion of
women in the industry at the start of the latest re-
cession (up from slightly more than 25 percent in
July 1981 to just over 30 percent in July 1990)

Footnotes

made the layoff of some women more unavoidable
in the nineties.

The finance industry within the finance, in-
surance, and real estate division also accounted
for considerable declines in jobs held by women.
This industry experienced a record level of
mergers and acquisitions in 1991 and, as a result,
consolidated some overlapping operations. Dur-
ing the latest recession, the industry lost about
55,000 employees, of whom 30,000 were women.
In previous downturns, finance had continued to
grow, with women gaining between 30,000 and
55,000 jobs.

‘THE BULK OF LOST Joss in all recent recessions af-
fected men rather than women, Both the Current
Employment Statistics survey of payrolls and the
Current Population Survey of households provide
evidence. The payroll survey shows that the major
cause of the difference is the relative performance
of industries that most heavily employ women; the
goods-producing industries have the greatest pro-
portions of men and suffer the most in recessions,
while certain service-sector industries which em-
ploy mainly women continue to grow during re-
cessions.'* In addition, government, and especially
local education, continues to hire large numbers of
women. In 3 of the 5 recessions since 1964, when
complete payroll statistics for women were first
produced, women actually gained jobs on a net
basis while total employment was substantially re-
duced, But the latest recession brought net job
losses for women, although men continued to be
affected to a far greater extent. Weaknesses in re-
tail trade, personnel supply, wholesale trade, and
finance—industries that employ large propor-
tions of women—were largely responsible for
this development. Oo

' See, for example, Judy Mann, “The 54 Percent Solution,”
The Washington Post, June 24, 1992, p. F12; and Nancy
Gibbs, “The War Against Feminism,” Time, Mar. 9, 1992, p.
54.

2 These recessionary periods, as defined by the National
Bureau of Economic Research, are: December 1969-No-
vember 1970; November 1973~March 1975; January 1980-
July 1980; July 1981-November 1982; and July 1990-March
1991,

* The Current Emptoyment Statistics (CEs) program pro-
duces estimates of employees on all nonfarm payrolls, based
‘on a monthly survey of about 380,000 workplaces. Data from
the program appear in the Bureau's monthly periodical Em-
ployment and Earnings and the two-volume historical set
Employment, Hours, and Earnings, United States (Bureau of
Labor Statistics. forthcoming). Estimates for all employees
and for women workers are published data, while estimates for

34 Monthly Labor Review July 1993

men were derived by subtraction for purposes of this article.

“The Current Population Survey produces estimates of all
civilian employment and unemployment based on a monthly
survey of 60,000 households. Results of the survey, like est
mates from the CES program, appear in the monthly periodical
Employment and Earnings.

“Number of Women in Government Increasing,” Women
in Public Service (Center for Women in Government, State
University of New York, Albany), Summer 1991, pp. 1-3.

* Julia Flynn, “Julia Stasch Raises the Roof for Feminism,”
Business Week, Jan. 25, 1993, p. 102.

7 This analysis discounts 194,000 temporary workers em-
ployed briefly by the Federal Government to conduct the
1990 census and still on the payroll at the beginning of the
recession. Most of these jobs ended during the first 2 months
of the recession; another 184,000 temporary census workers
were laid off before the recession began. The decennial cen-

{


William Goodman,
Stephen Antezak,
and

Laura Freeman

William Goodman, Stephen
Antezak, and Laura
Freeman are economists in
the Office of Employment
and Unemployment
Statistics, Bureau of Labor
Statistics.

26 Monthly Labor Review

Women and jobs

in recessions: 1969—92

The probability of losing one’s job

because of a recession is very different for women
and men, but in the last two recessions,

gender differences were reduced

belief that women lose jobs in recessions

before men do, and in proportionately
larger numbers.' These perceptions are not sup-
ported by the facts. This article discusses employ-
tment of women in recessions, and the sharp differ-
ences between the latest recession and earlier
ones.

It is true that trends in women’s employment
during recessions are quite different from those for
men, but men, not women, experience the bulk of
net job loss, even though men and women now
hold jobs in roughly equal numbers. In each of the
last five recessions,’ men lost at least 9 times as
many jobs as women did. This fact is primarily
attributable to the distribution of male and female
employees in the various industries and the degree
of cyclical job loss in each industry during reces-
sions. The goods-producing industries, which em-
ploy large numbers of men, sustain the greatest
job losses during downturns. Certain service-pro-
ducing industries that employ primarily women
actually continue to grow in recessions.

During the latest (1990-91) recession, how-
ever, the discrepancy between men and women
was sharply reduced, reflecting in part the unusual
and, in some cases, serious declines in certain ser-
vice-producing industries. (See chart 1.)

S ome recent statements in the media reveal a

Employment: the facts

The Current Employment Statistics survey of
businesses (which estimates the number of U.S.

July 1993

payroll jobs) provides evidence that men experi-
enced the bulk of job losses in all recessions since
1964, when complete employment estimates by
sex were first produced.’ In the first 3 of these 5
most recent recessions, the number of women on
payrolls in fact rose (although, of course, indi-
vidual women lost jobs), while the number of men.
losing jobs far exceeded the number hired. (See
table 1.)

In the last two recessions, women did lose
jobs on a net basis, although men lost 9 to 19
times as many. (See table 1.) The unusual losses
for women in the two recessions had quite dif-
ferent causes. In the recession of 1981-82,
women lost about 135,000 net jobs, largely re-
flecting a decline of about 170,000 jobs held by
women in government, as Federal aid to State
and local governments was reduced; meanwhile,
the number of private-sector jobs held by women
increased slightly. In the recession of the early
1990’s, women lost about 125,000 net payroll
jobs, with women’s employment in government
increasing while jobs held by women in the pri-
vate sector decreased by approximately 145,000.
The 1990's recession brought the greatest pri-
vate-sector loss of jobs for women in more than
20 years, as several important service-producing
industries were much weaker than in preceding
downturns.

The 1990-91 recession also was unusual in
that a net decline in jobs continued for 11 months
after the official March 1991 ending point of the
recession. To fully understand the differing im-


Chart 3. Payroll job toss or gain by women during the 1973-75 and 1990-91
recessions, by Industry
Mining |
Construction
. ll November 1973
Manufacturing | fo March 1876
@ July 1990
transport to March 1991
ransport,
communications, Zs
utlities

Wholesale trade |

Retail trade}

Finance,
insurance, -
real estate

Services [+

Government
‘except
decennial census
workers

A L 1 L

-1,000 -800 -600

-400

-200 ° 200 400
Jobs in thousands

600

800 1,000

"For all industries combined, women gained 396,000 jobs in the 1973-75 recession and lost 126,000 jobs in the

1990-91 recession.

10,000 women. In earlier recessions, this industry
generally continued to add jobs. For the hotel and
motel industry, the early nineties were character-
ized by overcapacity as a result of the commercial
building boom of the eighties. This overcapacity
required firms to cut costs, including labor costs,
to remain price-competitive.

In earlier recessions, the legal services industry
had continued to grow considerably, hiring 20,000
women, on average, from peak to trough. Employ-
ment in law firms remained flat during the 1990—
91 downturn, and the industry failed to hire more
women on a net basis, in contrast to preceding

recessions. The rate of job growth in legal ser-
vices was relatively low before the recession
started and had decreased every year from 1986
to 1991. Corporations sought to curb legal costs
through increased use of in-house counsel, as
opposed to outside legal services, and greater
use of arbitration, as opposed to litigation."' In
addition, the number of tort and personal injury
filings declined. The 1990-91 recession height-
ened competition among legal firms, which re-
sponded by laying off employees and reducing
hiring.

Retail trade was in deep trouble in the early

Monthly Labor Review

July 1993

33


women, partially accounting for women’s relative
job stability. Furthermore, even within some of
the divisions, a disproportionately small number
of women lose jobs. The tabulation below shows
employment changes for each sex in the goods-
producing and service-producing sectors for the
last five recessions:

Percent change in employment

Goods- Service-
Recession Total producing producing
Men

December 1969/

November 1970... -2.1 6.7 +11
November 1973/

March 1975 .. -10.1 +3
January 1980/

July 1980......., 2.3 5.7 -3
July 1981/

November 1982... —5.0 11.2 1S
July 1990/

March 1991 ...... -2.1 4.4 -1.0

Women

December 1969/

November 1970... +.3 7.0 42.5
November 1973/

March 1975...... +13 13.2 45.3
January 1980/

July 1980........ +.2 4.6 +13
July 1981/

November 1982... 3 8.3 14
July 1990/

March 1991 ...... =2 -3.0 +2

Inall cases except two (goods-producing in the
first two recessions), women fared considerably
better than men.

In studying particular cases in which women
within an industry division gained or retained jobs
more successfully than men, three distinct expla-
nations emerge. In some cases, these dispropor-
tionate changes are related to the occupations held
by men and women in the division: men more of-

ten are in occupations for which demand is heavily
affected by the business cycle. In other cases,
strong growth occurs in the division’s more spe-
cific industries in which women are more concen-
trated. For example, hospitals, a part of the ser-
vices division, has an extremely high proportion
of women employees and has shown exception-
ally robust growth, both in normal times and dur-
ing recessions. In a third set of cases, a dispropor-
tionate increase in women employees during
recessions is a continuation of a long-term trend
toward greater utilization of women in a division.
For example, affirmative action policies in gov-
emment agencies® seem to have an effect both in
times of economic expansion and during reces-
sions. Long-term increases in the employment of
women especially characterize the finance, insur-
ance, and real estate and government divisions.

The mining and construction industries are ex-
amples of the first type of case, in which occupa-
tional differences are relevant. Women make up
only 2 percent of the construction trades,° and ap-
proximately 85 percent of the women employed in
the construction industry hold office jobs. In the
1969-70 and 1973-75 recessions, the number of
women employed by construction companies re-
mained roughly unchanged, while large numbers
of men were terminated. In the next two reces-
sions (1980 and 1981-82), the number of women.
employees in construction decreased by 1 to 2 per-
cent. At the start of the 1990-91 recession, 11 per-
cent of construction company employees were
women, but only 3 percent of the net jobs lost dur-
ing the recession were held by women. In all these
Tecessions, massive layoffs of men occurred, as
declines in the demand for skilled construction
workers, laborers, and other onsite workers fell off
dramatically. But most of the office employees,
including most women in the division, continued
to be needed unless the business closed down.
(See table 5.)

Similarly, mining, with women accounting for

Table 2. | Women workers as a percentage of employment by major industry division at
the beginning of each of the last five recessions
Industry December | November | January July July
division 1969 1973 1980 1981 1990
Total nontarm. 36.6 38.0 a7 42.8 475
Goods producing. cece f 264 24.9 26.3 26.9 27.8
Mining... 00.22 oo. 59 67 98 11.2 13.5
Construction... 49 60 4 92 10.8
Manutacturing . 28.2 29.3 3t4 315 32.9
Service-producing ........... 2.6... 43.1 44.2 48.1 49.0 53.2
Transportation, communications,
public utilities .......,, 20.9 214 24.5, 26.0 29.4
Wholesale trade. 23.2 23.4 25.7 26.1 30.6
Retail trade... 459 468 49.6 49.9 53.3
Finance, insurance, and realestate .| 52.1 53.3 $8.7 59.6 63.2
Services........ 53.6 547 58.1 59.0 60.7
Government cee f 426 43.6 475 48.0 53.3

Monthly Labor Review July 1993 29


Women and Jobs in Recessions

Chart 1. Numbers of payroll jobs lost or gained by women and men
In the 1990-91 recession, by Industry

Mining

Conetruction +

Manufacturing [-

‘Transport,
communications, |
utilities

Wholesale trade [-

Retail trade [-

Services -

Government
except

decennial census
workers

L

1 Ll L 1

-500 -400 -300

-200

-100 °

Jobs in thousands
‘For all industries combined, men lost 1,211,000 jobs and women lost 126,000 jobs.

100 200 300 400 600

producing sector has always suffered much more The tabulation shows that the goods-producing
than the service-producing sector:

Recession

December 1969/
November 1970...
November 1973/
March 1975
January 1980/
July 1980........
July 1981/
November 1982...
July 1990/
March 1991 ......

28 Monthly Labor Review July 1993

Percentage change in jobs

Total Goods- Servi
nonfarm producing producing
12 68 +17
18 10.9425
“120-540 o4+.5
3.1 10.4 -1
“120 -4000« = 4

sector Jost a substantial proportion of its jobs in
each recession since 1964, and that the service-
producing sector showed gains and relatively mild
losses in the various post-1964 recessions. (See
table 4 for a more detailed breakdown of losses
and gains in the latest recession.)

Who lost the jobs. As indicated earlier, because
the goods-producing industries bear most of the
job loss during recessions and because employ-
ment in this sector is heavily male, men lose the
great majority of jobs in recessions. The industry
divisions that fare best during recessions, services
and government, have a high concentration of


pact of the recession on men and women, the
postrecession period of continuing job losses
should be analyzed. From the start of the down-
turn in July 1990 to the lowest point of em-
ployment in February 1992, men lost a net 1.7
million payroll jobs while women gained ap-
proximately 50,000 jobs. Whether the official
recession period or the entire period of decline in
employment is considered, women at worst ac-
counted for only a small fraction of the net jobs
lost.

The broader measure of all civilian employ-
ment from the Current Population Survey of
households‘ confirms that men incur most of the
job loss during recessions. The household sur-
vey indicates that the number of employed
women actually increased during 3 of the last 5
recessions and declined slightly in 2—including
the most recent one—while the number of em-
ployed men fell more steeply in all five cases.
Unemployment data from the household survey
also show that men are hit harder than women in
recessions. In the four most recent recessions,
the number of unemployed men expanded by
1-1/2 to 3 times the increase in the number of
unemployed women.

Why men lose more jobs

Where women work. The chief explanation for
the vast differences in employment loss between
women and men in recessions concerns the pro-
portions of jobs held by women in the various
industries. Table 2 shows the percent of jobs in
the major industry divisions that were held by
women at the beginning of each of the last five
recessions. As can readily be seen, women have
gained a considerable proportion of the jobs in
the economy since late 1969. The increases have
been broad-based, occurring in each division.
But the relative proportion of women employed
in each division in comparison to other divisions
shows a great deal of stability over the 20-year

period. Construction and mining had the lowest
concentrations of women in 1990, as in 1969.
Services and finance, insurance, and real estate
remained the industry divisions with the highest
concentrations of women. Retail trade and gov-
ernment had the next highest percentages of
women throughout the period; in both cases,
women increased from less than half of all em-
ployees to slightly over half.

A second way to look at the distribution of
jobs by gender is to analyze the percent of all job-
holding women who work in each of the industry
divisions. This breakdown of employed women is
shown in table 3, with comparisons for December
1969 and July 1990 (the starting points of the first
and last recessions for which data are available).
The table shows that the distribution of women
across industries has been fairly stable over the
two decades. The only changes of more than 2 per-
centage points have been in manufacturing and
services (one of six divisions of the more inclusive
service-producing sector). Manufacturing lost al-
most 1 million jobs as employment in general
grew, so that the manufacturing division’s share of
jobs was reduced by 10 percentage points. Ser-
vices gained nearly 17 million jobs, so that the di-
vision ended up with an additional 10-percent
share of all jobs. The vast majority of women who
have jobs are employed in service-producing in-
dustries, primarily retail trade, services, and gov-
emment. The overall job loss or gain of women
during recessions, therefore, is likely to be most
affected by the strength or weakness of the ser-
vice-producing sector.

Where jobs are lost. Inall recessions since 1964,
some industry divisions have lost more business
and more jobs than others have, and the losses
have not been proportionate to the sizes of the di-
visions. Although some exceptional develop-
ments, such as the reduction in government jobs
during the 1981-82 recession, have occurred, cer-
tain consistencies in the pattern of job loss can be
identified. Over the last five recessions, the goods-

Table 1.
recent recessions, 1969-91

[In thousands, seasonally adjusted]

Job gain or loss for for men and women on nonfarm payrolls in the five most

Dates of Total nonfarm Goods-producing Service-producing
recession

Men Women Men Women Men Women
December 1969/November 1970 - 940 +85, - 1,287 414 +297 +499
November 1973/March 1975 — 1,834 +396 - 1,909 — 827 +75 41,223
January 1980/July 1980 ~ 1,192 +78 ~ 1,104 — 322 -88 +400
July 1981/November 1982. . — 2,595 = 135 — 2,092 - 574 - 503 +439
July 1990/March 1991 1,211 — 126 - 798 ~ 208 413 +82

Research.

Nore: The recession dates are the turning points in the business cycle, as designated by the National Bureau of Economic

Monthly Labor Review July 1993 27