by Damozel | The New York Times came up with what I'd call a strange title for this article: Women Are Now Equal as Victims of Poor Economy. And the key points are oddly framed:
[F]or the first time since the women’s movement came to life, an economic
recovery has come and gone, and the percentage of women at work has
fallen, not risen, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Each of the seven previous recoveries since 1960 ended with a greater percentage of women at work than when it began...
The proportion of women holding jobs in their prime working years, 25
to 54, peaked at 74.9 percent in early 2000 as the technology
investment bubble was about to burst. Eight years later, in June, it
was 72.7 percent, a seemingly small decline, but those 2.2 percentage
points erase more than 12 years of gains for women. Four million more
in their prime years would be employed today if the old pattern had
prevailed through the expansion now ending..
Economists first assumed that this was because women didn't need the money or had 'other priorities.' Whimsical little souls, those economists.