The recession was hard on men, as you may have gathered from the reams of coverage of the "mancession." (I still don't get why it wasn't a "hecession," if we needed a cheesy portmanteau.) But three years into the recovery, such as it is, men have regained more of the ground they lost to the recession than women have, and public sector job losses that have disproportionately hit women are a key reason for that.
According to a
new report (PDF) from the National Women's Law Center, men have gained back 39 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession, while women have gained back just 24 percent. One major factor in that is that women have lost four public sector jobs for every 10 jobs they have gained in the private sector since June 2009. Men, by contrast, have lost one public sector job for every 10 private sector jobs gained back.
The public sector isn't the only issue. Women have lost manufacturing and retail jobs during the recovery, for instance, while men have gained them. But with public sector job losses it couldn't be more clear cut that cuts to the government are actually holding back the entire nation's economy recovery—and Republicans are campaigning on more of the same.