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November 1990, Vol. 113, No. 11
Labor market dynamics and trends in male and female unemployment
Wayne J. Howe
In the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's, unemployment rates for adult women were much higher than those for adult men. During the 1980's, a decade of generally higher jobless rates, the female-male unemployment rate gap essentially disappeared. (See chart 1.) What were the labor market dynamics that caused this development?
Obviously, changes in a group's jobless rate often would reflect a change in the frequency of job loss. But jobless rates can change without this happening at all. For example, a rise might occur because the unemployed face increased difficulties in finding jobs-and thus remain unemployed longer-or because persons move into and out of the labor force more frequently. Of course, while some forces are at work to raise a group's unemployment rate, others may tend to offset these effects. And the dynamics of these forces may change considerably over time.
The patterns of movements into and out of employment, unemployment, and the labor force have changed substantially over the last two decades. This article looks separately at the trends in these patterns for adult men and women (20 years and over), and the effect that they had on the changes in the rates of male and female unemployment over the 1968-88 period. (See table 1.)
This excerpt is from an article published in the November 1990 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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Women and jobs in recessions: 1969-92.—July 1993.
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