The Rise of the Female Breadwinner

Forbes recently reported about career women and the emergence of the female breadwinner in the US economy where over 75% of job losses have been among men. The article In This Recession, Men Drop Out Elizabeth Eaves reports " We've heard a lot over the years about the increase in women in the workforce, and the numbers are indeed dramatic: The percentage of adult American women who are employed climbed from about 37% in 1965 to about 55% in 2008, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the National Bureau of Economic Research. We hear less concerning the percentage of adult American men who are employed, which fell from about 81% in 1965 to 69% in 2008. The share of men in the United States with a job is at its lowest point ever - and the number of men who are out of the labor force and who have stopped looking is increasing. That may end up making a woman the family breadwinner in more households. But something else even more unusual is also going on: Men are not merely becoming unemployed in greater numbers than ever before. They are actually dropping out of the labor force at greater rates than before, which is different."