At the start of the Great Recession, Lisa Blaker was a stay-at-home mom. Less than a year later, she wasn't. Instead, she became one of hundreds of thousands of women across the country who joined the workforce -- or added hours, or became a sole breadwinner -- amid the nation's most severe economic downturn in generations.
The mothers and wives of this recession have bought groceries, paid mortgages, kept away debt collectors -- stepping in as financial necessity has increasingly altered the eternal struggle between work and home.
Blaker went back to her career in information systems after eight years at home in Gaithersburg. In Silver Spring, musician Alison Crockett continues to work three part-time jobs, even though she had hoped to be with her infant daughter. In Takoma Park, Pamela Fields ratcheted up from part-time to full-time hours, forgoing afternoons with her school-age children.
Recent census data and other figures reflect this reordering of family life: As the recession set in, fewer married women stayed home to raise their children. Wives with jobs worked more. More wives were sole wage-earners. These changes came as men took a bigger hit in the employment market, experiencing three-quarters of all job losses in a gender gap that has led some observers to dub this downturn a "mancession." ...
The gender gap shows up in the unemployment rate, which is 10 percent for men and 7.9 percent for women. Experts say male-dominated industries such as construction and manufacturing have been severely affected by the recession, but several fields dominated by women, such as health care and education, have actually added jobs. ...
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