The BLS data released today show that the 2.5% difference between the male unemployment rate (10.5%) and female unemployment (8%) in May is the highest male-female jobless rate gap in the history of BLS data back to 1948 (see chart above of the monthly unemployment rates since 2002; and the chart below of the DIFFERENCE between male and female jobless rates since 1948). Further, the 2.5% gap matches the largest gap in either direction; there was a 2.5% female-male jobless rate gap for several months in the mid-1960s and again in the mid-1970s (see chart below, the female jobless rate exceeds the male rate for observations below the red zero line). 
The chart above showing the monthly male-female jobless rate gap back to January 1948, also displays the last 11 U.S. recessions (shaded areas) and suggests the following:1. The current male-female jobless rate gap of 2.5% is truly unprecedented; there has never been such a huge gap between the unemployment rate for men and women in any previous recession, or any previous expansion.
2. In the last three U.S. recessions (1981-1982, 1990-1991 and 2001), the male jobless rate exceeded the female rate by about 1%, but nothing close to even approaching the current 2.5% male-female jobless rate gap.
3. In the other past recessions, there either wasn't much of a male-female jobless rate gap at all, or a jobless rate gap in favor of men, like during the two recessions of the 1970s when female unemployment rate exceeded male unemployment by about 2%. However, that 2% gap in favor of men was actually fairly typical during much of the period between the mid-1960s and late 1970s, recession or not.
Bottom Line: We are experiencing an unprecedented male recession during the current economic downturn, and the "Great Man-Cession" of 2008-2009 continues to worsen.
Post Title
→The Great Man-Cession of 2008-2009 Continues
Post URL
→https://manufacturing-holdings.blogspot.com/2009/06/great-man-cession-of-2008-2009.html
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