WSJ Interactive Graph of the Great Mancession

Here's a great WSJ Interactive Graphic that allows you to watch: a) monthly job losses by sector from December 2007 to August 2010, and b) monthly changes in the number of unemployed workers by gender and race over the same period. 

When watching the job losses by sector, you'll see that that: a) construction and manufacturing were the two sectors hit with the most job losses during the recession (combined loss of almost 4 million jobs through August 2010), and b) education and health care were the only two private sectors that continued to add jobs during the entire recession (more than 1 million jobs combined through August).

Then watch the interactive graph of the monthly number of unemployed workers by gender and you'll see that men were disproportionately affected by job losses, to the extent that in many months there were two men unemployed for every female who was unemployed. Even now that the recession has ended, there were still 172 unemployed men in August for every 100 women who were unemployed.

These two trends in sector job losses/gains and unemployment by gender are directly related by these facts about employment shares by gender:

Education: 74.3% female, 25.9% male
Health Care: 74.6% female, 25.4% male
Construction: 4.4% female, 95.6% male
Manufacturing: 21.4% female, 78.6% male

In other words, these two interactive graphs help tell the story of the Great Mancession of 2007-2010 and how men were disproportionately affected by the recessionary conditions that adversely impacted male-dominated industries (construction and manufacturing), while employment in female-dominated industries actually increased throughout the entire recession.  And according to the employment report yesterday, there is still a 2% male-female jobless rate gap of 10.6% for men and 8.6% for women, so the Great Mancession is not yet close to ending.  

Bottom Line: Maybe it's not such a good time to be man, now that men are on the wrong side of the jobless rate gap by 2%, the wrong side of the college degree gap (142 women graduated from college in 2010 for every 100 men) and now even the wrong side of the wage gap.