As Published in Business 2 Business, November 2009

The Pinking of Work

The rise of the female breadwinner

By Ira S Wolfe, Success Performance Solutions

While most of us were focused on jobs getting zapped and retirement funds getting trashed, the notion of the male as primary breadwinner took a beating.  It’s an elephant in the room and no one seems to notice.

It has come as a shock to many people that women have become the breadwinners in this topsy-turvy economy.  The real surprise however should be that anyone is surprised at all.

The current recession has been dubbed the “he-cession.”  Others have described it as the “downsizing of masculinity” and “Emasculating the American Dream.” As a result of men accounting for nearly 3 out of every 4 jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007, women now hold a record high 49.8 percent of all payroll jobs. At the same time, the female unemployment rate has been relatively stable in several industries.  A role reversal in many domestic household activities has taken place, particularly for blue-collar, working class men. The notion of female breadwinners is not a new phenomenon but you have to look back to the Great Depression for comparison when 90 percent of job losses were held by men and few households had two wage earners.

Family hierarchy and notions of masculinity in two-parent households are likely to be affected in these transitioning times for families. But that’s just the personal side of things.  The transition of women to the role of primary breadwinner has just about reached the tipping point and has critical implications for the unsuspecting business.  

For many Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) and Veterans (born prior to 1946), father was the “Chief Breadwinning Officer.”  The male was the family anchor and the one parent responsible for providing and protecting the financial security of the family. The male until recently still held the role of primary breadwinner even when out-earned because health insurance was more often tied to the male’s job. While many women acquired significant positions and salaries in business, even out-earning their spouses occasionally, they often exited or worked part-time in the workforce after children were born or aging relatives required constant care. 

Let’s do the math. Men's job losses have been higher than women's because they worked in industries harder hit by the downturn.  From December 2007 to December 2008, half of the job losses occurred in either construction or manufacturing. Men made up nearly all (87 percent) of construction workers and have lost 94 percent of the construction jobs.  Likewise, men made up just over two-thirds of manufacturing workers, and have lost about that same share of the jobs. Overall, 82 percent of job losses in the past 12 months have befallen men, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, women are the primary job holders in the government, education, and health care sectors, the least affected industries by the recession.  These industries traditionally have been secure and recession-proof and to date have weathered the downturn relatively well.

For example, over 71 percent of all teachers are women. Well over 90 percent of all nurses are women.  And female students represent the majority of students in a number of health professions schools, including social work (83 percent), public health (68.2 percent), podiatry (61.7 percent), optometry (57.4 percent) and dietetics (95 percent). Layoffs in these industries are low and in fact, jobs were still being created. With a booming aging population and explosive growth in school-age children, the trend is likely to continue.  So as more manufacturing jobs are outsourced and construction jobs remain cyclical at best, the secure and better paying jobs will be held by women for at least the near future.

Secondly, the female labor participation rate jumped from 34 percent in 1950 to a high of 60 percent in the early 2000s while male participation fell from 86 percent to 73 percent. During the same period, the number of unskilled jobs fell from 60 percent in 1950 to only 15 percent.  Moving forward, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly half of all new jobs created between now and 2016 will require post-secondary credentials and fall in the "middle-skill" jobs categories.  For the past few decades, while the men were working, more women were getting an education. Only 7 percent of men and 5 percent of women completed a four-year college in 1950.  By 2008, nearly 35 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 29 have completed four-year programs while less than 27 percent of men do.  For every 100 women enrolled in college there are 77 men enrolled and for every 100 American women who earn an associate's degree from college 67 American men earn the same degree.  The female preparedness gaps widen further when you look at black, Asian and Hispanics.  

Many men, on the other hand, held onto jobs in industries that required only a high school education or a trade school certificate. Many of those jobs are gone forever.  The new jobs being created require more education and advanced training. For the immediate future, it seems this testosterone-fueled makeover of the workforce will thrust more women into the role of primary breadwinner. 

So I ask you - is it really any surprise that more and more female workers are becoming the primary breadwinners? The recession may have accelerated the trend but in no way initiated a shift. With more women than men hold post-secondary credentials, especially in the younger worker population, it doesn't take a genius to predict which gender will be filling the majority of new jobs.

This shift has serious human resource implications for previously male-dominated industries, relating to everything from compensation and benefits to work/life issues.

Wages.  Women earn approximately 75 cents on the dollar for men holding similar positions. For the short term, the wage gap will likely shrink because both female and male workers will accept lower wages to secure or retain a job.  However, skilled worker shortages will continue and increase as soon as the economy rebounds.  Since the majority of women hold the keys to the skill banks for many jobs, wages will surely rise. Have you budgeted for this? 

Benefits.  For many families, the loss of a job was not the only casualty for the breadwinner – the family also lost its health coverage. This now places an additional burden upon the working female.  What happens when women demand family coverage which previously they previously waived?  Is your business prepared to offer insurance to these new primary breadwinners? Have you anticipated this increased demand? What happens when the economy rebounds – will health care coverage for the newly ordained primary breadwinner become a competitive recruiting advantage? 

Work/life issues.  In the not too-distant past, women were openly rejected for jobs if they were in their prime child-bearing years.  Today, women are protected by discrimination laws but that doesn’t mean that time-off for maternity, caregiving, or other family leave issues doesn’t cut into a female’s availability or schedule.  Many other women and quite a few men choose to balance work and family obligations too, forcing businesses to change how they operate, manage, and meet.  What happens when the man’s job becomes less important to a family’s security and finances?  What happens when more men must leave work to pick up the kids or drive Dad or Mom to the doctor? With more women as primary breadwinners and consequently more men as the supporter, human resource policies from recruitment to performance management will need to be updated and upgraded to respond to this new dynamic.  Are you ready? 

Is your business prepared to recruit and retain more female workers in key positions?  Are you prepared to accommodate flexible working arrangements for Mr. Mom's who may no longer be the primary breadwinner? 

About the author

As president of Success Performance Solutions, Ira S Wolfe helps organizations find and hire the right employees and identify high-potential leaders. He speaks nationwide on hiring, workforce trends, managing the generations in a presentation titled Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization.