In a reversal, job growth fades for women workers
By Alexandra Marks | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

NEW YORK - Stephanie Brown, a single mother of a 2-year-old, was recently laid off as a bank teller in Lansing, Mich. Despite sending out a flurry of résumés, she's finding the hunt for a new job - especially one with benefits - difficult.

"It's been weeks, and I haven't had one bite on my résumé," says Ms Brown. "And I've got quite a lot of experience in office and clerical work."

Brown's predicament is part of a growing phenomenon in the American workforce: Job insecurity among women.

For decades, even in the worst of times, women continued to steadily join the workforce, catching up to men in terms of the percentage of the population with a full-time paycheck. But during the most recent downturn, more women left the workforce than came in for the first time in more than 40 years. One economist calls it the first equal-opportunity recession.

Now, as the economy recovers, the central question is whether job growth among women will pick up again and how quickly. That could help determine whether the number of women joining the workforce has finally peaked. At the least, structural changes in the economy seem to have made it just as difficult for women as for men to find a good job with benefits.