Employment Facts
May 19, 2010
SINCE 2000, the male employment rate has dropped by nine percentage points. The female employment rate has declined by less than five points. The difference will almost certainly be less extreme once the recession ends and traditionally male fields such as construction recover. Nevertheless, these differentials have changed radically in the past 60 years. The male employment rate was 57 percentage points higher in 1950, which explains some of what I noted about the fifties here. It is now about 11 points higher than the female employment rate. As of 2007, about 25 percent of women worked part-time while 10.5 percent of men did.
Here is a table illustrating the employment rates for men and women aged 25 to 54. The sources for these numbers can be found here and here.
Male Female Difference
1950 91.2% 33.8% 57.4
1960 93.4% 40.2% 53.2
1970 94.0% 48.2% 45.8
1980 90.8% 60.4% 30.4
1990 89.9% 70.9% 19.0
1995 87.9% 71.8% 16.1
2000 89.5% 74.4% 15.1
2007 87.9% 72.9% 15.0
2010 80.5% 69.9% 10.6
For more recent years, broken down according to race:
White Black
Male Female Diff. Male Female Diff.
1995 88.4% 72.7% 15.7 75.5% 67.3% 8.2
2000 89.9% 75.1% 14.8 79.1% 74.4% 4.7
2007 88.3% 73.1% 15.2 78.3% 73.0% 5.3
2010 81.2% 70.7% 10.5 68.0% 67.6% 0.4
Hispanic
Male Female Diff.
1995 82.4% 54.8% 27.6
2000 89.2% 63.8% 25.4
2007 88.2% 62.9% 25.3
2010 79.4% 61.2% 18.2
The reader JessePowell tabulated the figures in these charts.
