Equal Pay? How the Recession Magnifies the Wage Gap

Posted by: Lauren Young on August 26

In honor of Women’s Equality Day, this post was written by Lisa Gilford (pictured here), who is the president of the National Association of Women Lawyers and a litigation partner in the Los Angeles office of Alston & Bird LLP focusing her practice on toxic torts and product law. She is also a mother of a daughter and son, ages 6 and 4.

There has been a great deal of media attention devoted to the notion that the recession is having a greater impact on men than women. Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that since the recession began, 78% of all the jobs lost were held by men. The male unemployment rate is now almost 3 percentage points higher than that for women, a gap larger than any other time since immediately after WWII. The coverage of the “He-cession” is geared toward the idea that there has been a dramatic shift in economic opportunities in favor of women, and this shift is hitting men particularly hard, especially on an emotional level.

The raw numbers, however, don’t tell the full story, and therefore don’t lead me to conclude that women are the unintended beneficiaries of these financial hard times. I certainly don’t see my female colleagues whistling their way to work every morning, safe and secure in the knowledge of their continued employment. I am employed in the legal profession, and while comprehensive data will not be available until the National Association of Women Lawyers releases it annual survey of the top 200 law firms in the fall, anecdotal evidence suggests that women lawyers are bearing the brunt of the rash of layoffs that hit the profession this year.

One report from a large national law firm, for example, revealed that 22 out of the 30 lawyers it recently laid off were women. The explanation given for this disparity was telling. Women associates, it seems, were greater represented at the junior levels of the corporate and real estate practice groups most impacted by the crisis, and were therefore the first to be let go when the work slowed down. The more traditionally male litigation practice was less affected.

While it is the case that the recession is impacting the traditionally male sectors of manufacturing and construction in terms of a greater number of jobs lost, what we are seeing is the flip side of a situation borne of a problem women have been complaining about for years—men have historically held more of the heretofore secure, high-paying jobs in construction and manufacturing.

The only conclusion to be drawn? Where gender segregation exists in a particular field, one gender will inevitably fare worse when hard times hit the industry. This news is hardly a revelation, and it shouldn’t leave anyone, male or female, feeling particularly comfortable.

Truth be told, this is not a male economic crisis. While there is a new unemployment gap that favors women, there is a very old earnings gap that favors men. Women continue to earn just 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man doing the same job, with the same education and level of experience. The industries least impacted by the recession thus far, education and health care, employ a larger number of women, but let’s face it: teachers and nurses generally don’t earn as much as unionized workers in manufacturing and construction. So just because the numbers show men losing ground, it doesn’t necessarily mean that women are gaining. The recent media reports on the disparate impact of the recession on the sexes should only serve as a reminder that occupational segregation along gender lines is a bad thing—for everyone.

And as the number of households where women are the primary earners increases exponentially, let us be reminded of the need to make sure that jobs held by women pay better and have better benefits than they have in the past.

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