Monday, August 4, 2008

The new equality - in unemployment

The House Financial Services committee meets. ...Image via WikipediaThere's a lot of talk around the blogosphere about the new report issued by the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. The report argues that the poor economy affects women and men in the same way: women, like men, are suffering from layoffs, pay cuts, outsourcing, and downturns.

Amanda Petersen, on the AAUW blog, DIALOG, argues that women suffer more in a poor economy. But, columnist Ellen Goodman takes a different view. She celebrates the end of the bogus claim that women "opt out" of the job market to stay home and raise their kids.

The new equality - in unemployment - The Boston Globe: 'If it's true that women don't want to work,' says one economist, 'think of all the problems that disappear overnight. We don't have to think about family leave or after-school or the day-to-day grind or the tough challenges of work and family.'

Now along comes the congressional report on the equality we didn't want. 'When we saw women starting to drop out in the early part of this decade, we thought it was the motherhood movement, women staying home to raise their kids,' said congressional economist Heather Boushey. 'We did not think it was the economy, but when we looked into it, we realized that it was.' "

These are two interesting views of the same report. What's your opinion?

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