The Great Recession of 2007-09 included job losses that were so much greater for men than for women that some dubbed it the “mancession.”
But once the nation went into recovery – meaning the economy was expanding again, albeit slowly – men saw much stronger job gains than women. In fact women actually lost jobs in the first two years of the recovery, while men gained ground, according to a Pew Research Center report.
After the worst economic downturn in nearly a century, men continue to earn more than women in 361 metropolitan areas in the country, an annual survey by the Census Bureau found. If current trends continue, it will take 45 years for women’s salaries to equal that of men’s, research by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research shows.
According to Steinem, U.S. women earn an average of $2 million less over the course of their lifetimes than men. It isn’t because they stop working sooner, she said. “It’s because they are paid unequally.”
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