Free Republic

Men are disappearing from the workplace in ways that don't always register on the official unemployment rate The March jobs report released on Apr. 1 seemed like the best in years. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis released a statement noting that the four-month drop in the jobless rate, to 8.8 percent from 9.8 percent, was "its largest decline since 1984." Behind the headlines, though, statistics on jobs are far less encouraging. Yes, job growth has picked up somewhat. Yet an equally important reason for the lower jobless rate is that many people, men in particular, have simply given up looking...

Why is Congress passing new affirmative action laws in the middle of the mancession? If anything, this bill is a kick in the pants to the millions of laid-off men who are struggling to pay the bills — often to their wealthier ex-wives, who have states bludgeoning impoverished ex-husbands to give more money to buy shoes and such. Institutionalized hatred and oppression of men is officially the norm in the United States, and women, rather than have some sympathy for their brothers, husbands, fathers and sons, sit back and write articles about the superiority of their sex. Morally speaking, women...

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- This town of 15,000 in southwest Virginia is a good candidate for Anywhere, USA. There is bingo at the Elk's Lodge every Monday night. Bowling is a blood sport. But Martinsville also has an unwanted distinction -- a 20 percent unemployment rate, the highest in Virginia. As the State of the Union approaches, the political class will turn en masse to the issue of unemployment. So I sat down with the objects of this attention -- a group of men studying at a Martinsville vocational training college. From them I learned: It is not easy to make...

Sometimes it’s hard to be a man. The current recession is a case in point. Men account for three quarters of the 7 million U.S. job losses, leading to talk of a “man-cession.” With male unemployment rampant, women are on the cusp of a historic breakthrough. Before the end of the year, women are likely to form a majority of salaried U.S. workers for the first time. Government statistics show jobs held by men have declined 6.46 percent from their peak during this recession, while jobs held by women have fallen only 2.88 percent. That translates to 4.9 million fewer...

THE economic crisis is sweeping away men's jobs at a faster rate than women's in the US, heralding the onset of a "mancession". New unemployment figures have revealed the biggest gap in jobless rates between men and women for more than half a century. The shifting pattern is redefining gender roles and challenging the status of men as family breadwinners. Tony Hawkins, 48, was laid off by his truck manufacturing plant in North Carolina after 22 years. "You could kind of feel it coming, but you think, well, you'll be OK, when all of a sudden, boom!" His wife, Johnnie,...