Key Differences in Being Out of Work for Men and Women

[EBearhug]

I was sent this article on key differences in being out of work for men and women

It's from the USA, and they don't have the same rights over things like maternity leave as we do in the UK (or the rest of Europe), so that may affect some people's decisions. But I think some of it is probably relevant here, like men being less willing to take minimum-wage jobs than women are.

(I'm not sure I agree that sleep counts as leisure.)

[OmnipotentQueenOfTheUniverse]

That's really interesting, thanks for posting.

The thing that struck me was that they included people who were at home by choice, not just those who were unemployed and looking (poss desperately) for work.

I wonder what the results would look like if you took out people who are SAH by choice, is what I'm getting at.

[EBearhug]

Yes - you need to have a certain level of financial security to be able to choose to stay home. I have no idea if there's anything like child benefit or other benefits if you're in the USA, and if so, if it's just in certain states, rather than federal. I know what my assumptions are, but they are mostly based on my perceptions of American health care funding.

I'm currently employed and while I do look at other opportunities from time to time, I'm quite fussy about what I'll consider - but I couldn't afford to be unemployed for long, so I couldn't let pride get in the way - or maybe it works in a different way; it's been over a decade since I last had to sign on, and I'm aware things have changed a lot since then, but I was prepared to do temping or cleaning or other stuff if I didn't find a "proper" techy job quickly, mostly because I got annoyed with the disorganisation of how they seemed to manage the job centre, and almost any sort of work was better than having to get annoyed by that every fortnight. I suspect from conversations with male colleagues that they'd spend a lot longer focussing only on looking for jobs like the one they just had. Maybe if I had a partner, I would too.

[Selvsikker]

You need a certain level of childcare to be able to choose to work though!

All of this stuff about women choosing to sah, I was cornered in to that for years because my earning potential so low. But this is a mumsnet thing. Where there are a lot of high earning successful women who say things like 'i couldn't afford not to work'. They 've no understanding of what it's like to have no more earning potential than a child minder.


I want to buy that !ueenbees and wannabees book stainlesssteel.

[PuffinsAreFictitious]

Absolutely Sel. Really good and affordable childcare is a feminist issue.

So many young women I speak to, who have jobs rather than careers, feel they have no choice BUT to sah with children, especially if they have more than one child. They simply can't afford to work as their earning potential is less than what they'd be paying out for childcare.

Telling them that they should have worked harder in school is just kicking them when they're down really.

[dreamingbohemian]

It's not necessarily financial security that keeps women at home in the US -- like in the UK, childcare rates are astronomical, but there is no child benefit, no tax credits, no paid maternity leave (unless you are really lucky). So a lot of women don't have much choice and I agree, I think you would need this breakdown to make the results more meaningful.

I do find it interesting, the bit about men waiting for a better job and not just taking anything -- it's something I've seen firsthand over the years, and I'm actually coming to the conclusion that this is a smart thing to do (unless you are really broke obviously). What I see is that women will take on any job, and within jobs will take on any tasks, with the result that women get stuck with all the low-paid crappy work. But when I look at the men I know who are doing well professionally, one thing they all have in common is they held out for good jobs, unless they literally could not feed themselves otherwise.

[LightningOnlyStrikesOnce]

Point of info - I'm a sahm. I could have stayed on at work and got no financial benefit for it at all. Childcare costs were the same as what I was earning. I wasn't in a minimum wage job, it was median wage level - accordingly we weren't getting any state help.

I suppose I could have found a cheaper childminder, though the Surestart nursery they were in was cheap for the area. Still I wouldn't have been working for much.

The op report is clearly just a statement of what is happenng at the moment, it makes no statement about causality. Many of the things they were rated on seem to me to be linked, eg socialising levels and mental health. The differences seem to be caused by current gender relations as well as being very descriptive of them.

[EBearhug]

What I see is that women will take on any job, and within jobs will take on any tasks

And when you put your foot down and refuse to do something, you're seen as unreasonable in a way that men often aren't...

[delaselva]

Yes, men would be showing their self-worth by 'not selling themselves short' whereas a woman who did that would have delusions or notions.

[delaselva]

ps, I was on a tour of a girls' secondary school recently and we were being shown the computer room. One of the Dads asked "are they taught typing?!" (he was in his fifties, so kind of on the old side to have a dpaughter about to go to secondary school, but only a decade older than average, so not really an excuse). There was a silence. Tumbleweed. The teacher leading us round said , um, that falls in to place. I hope I spoke for the other parents when I mock-jokingly said "no! no! whatever you do, don't teach them to type they might end up ......... typing .

[Trills]

Notions.

Indeed.

Good word delaselva

On the typing front, could we be optimistic and hope that the dad meant that being able to type quickly and accurately is important for any job that involves a computer? I know that if I could touchtype properly it would make me more efficient, and that touchtyping properly is something you have to learn (I use 6 or 7 fingers out of 10).

[HelenaDove]

In the late 90s both DH and were unemployed for a while and were both signing on. We had separate sign on times on separate days. One of these times they took me to one side and made me sign a form saying i would consider part time work.
They did no such thing with regards to DH This was over twenty years after the Sex Discrimination Act was passed.