Mothers as the New Breadwinners?

Robert Patterson's statistics-packed article in the Washington Examiner points to a troubling employment picture for men ages 25-54, a better-than-average unemployment rate for women, and a trend, with government's assistance, in the feminization of the workforce. Women should file this under "be careful what you wish for..."
Writes Patterson:

Unless things turn around, 2011 may be the third consecutive year with unemployment exceeding 9 percent, a first since the Labor Department began tracking the stat in 1948.

Yet more troubling are the higher rates of joblessness - and bleaker employment prospects - for men ages 25-54 relative to their female peers.  Unemployment in this critical demographic may not seem like an outlier (also around 9 percent since 2009).  But it follows a steady drop in the labor-force participation rate of these men of nearly 7 percentage points since 1970, along with declines in their relative wages.

In all, one-fifth of men in their prime have either dropped out of the workforce or are unemployed.

Meanwhile, women are not only experiencing lower unemployment (about 7.5 percent since 2009), but also a leap in their labor-force participation rate, per the adjacent chart, of more than half since 1970, along with rising relative earnings. In fact, the participation rate of married mothers has more than doubled since 1965.

Mothers and fathers have very different ideals when it comes to working outside the home, according to Labor Department data.  The vast majority of fathers (72%) view full-time employment as ideal, says Patterson, while the majority of mothers (60%) prefer part-time employment.

Such traditional sentiments would naturally shock elites, if they were paying attention. But despite most Americans’ misgivings, even center-right observers seem resigned to the notion that economic forces have produced, and will sustain, this feminization of the workforce.

David Brooks recently lamented in the New York Times, “More American men lack the emotional and professional skills they would need to contribute.” In “Manning Up,” author Kay Hymowitz explains how the transition from an industrial- to a knowledge-based economy favors the weaker sex, particularly younger college-educated women. [Read more on Hymowitz's assessment.]

Yet neither acknowledges how federal policies have propped up the new regime. Sex-based affirmative action, a form of rent-seeking with which big business eagerly complies, has of course favored women over men in the job market since the 1970s.

Government's social engineering in means-tested welfare system is another contributor, suggests Patterson, and he calls for the repeal of policies "that have debased the family by moving breadwinning fathers to the sidelines."

We suspect these are only the most obvious examples of misguided government policies that have forced many moms to assume the role of primary breadwinner - an "altered division of labor" that neither women nor men want.

An "altered division of labor" - or role-reversal - for motherhood is an impossibility; government can't socially engineer a way to turn men into child-bearers. This reality should make the trend in the genders' economic role-reversal a concern for every woman who is, or hopes one day to be, a mother.