Without Degrees
“They are taking jobs as baristas in Starbucks and other jobs that used to go to people without college degrees,” Entmacher said. “It’s an anecdote but it’s also a fact.”
Women who worked full-time in 2012 received $37,791 in median income, 77 percent of what men earned, the U.S. Census Bureau said in a report Sept. 17. That percentage has changed little since 2007. The number of men working full-time rose by 1 million from 2011 to 2012, while the change for women wasn’t statistically significant, according to the bureau’s data.
“The very definition of what it means to be middle class is being undercut by trends in our economy that must be addressed,” Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said in a Sept. 17 speech in Washington. “These trends -- like the increase in income inequality and the decline in upward mobility -- did not happen overnight.”
Dropping Out
While students and recent graduates are taking low-wage jobs to get started, other women are turning them down. About 2 million married women have dropped out of the work force since 2008.
“If they’re in a two-income house they’re more willing to drop out and take care of the children because it costs too much for day care,” Swonk said.
Quality of jobs is tied directly to economic growth, she said.
“Growth is a magician when it comes to employment because it pulls people out of the woodwork that might not have worked otherwise and gives them an opportunity,” Swonk said. “We’re not going to have robust growth for a while.”
Education may eventually shift the trend in favor of women, who accounted for a record 52 percent of college graduates in 2012. They passed men in 2005 and have gradually increased the lead every year since.