Much of this earnings disparity can be chalked up to choice—women choose different occupations than men, and once in them are less likely to opt for a work-all-the-time, no-interruption career track than men are. But that doesn't explain all of the gap. Meanwhile, much of men's shrinking share of payroll employment can be chalked up to choice—men could go into faster-growing service occupations; most just don't. But there's also evidence that men's social skills are less well-developed than women's, and that social skills are becoming more crucial to workplace success.

Put it all together, and we're at a weird moment for gender relations in the workplace. Women have long felt that the deck is stacked against them, and they aren't wrong about that. Now a growing number of men feel the deck is stacked against them, and while much of that is whining about losing unjustified privileges, some is due to real economic shifts that make things tougher on men. Women have the momentum, but men still have the corner office. It's a difficult dynamic in any case, but more widespread acknowledgement of its existence might make it a little less difficult.

This article was provided by Bloomberg News.

 

1. This survey was finally conducted again last year, but the data isn't out yet (when it is, it will be right here).

2. I don't have a great answer for why women's share of employment in the two surveys switched places in the 1980s. Maybe the share of women doing off-the-books household service work fell, while the brutal recession of the early 1980s pushed men out of payroll manufacturing jobs and into independent contracting or off-the-books work.

3. The percentage dropped as low as 55.9 percent during World War II, but 60 to 62 percent seems to have been the non-wartime norm.

4. Up from 37.7 percent in 1980 to 48.4 percent in 2000, according to the research he cited. That share has presumably gone even higher since.

 

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