Calculated Risk presents a chart showing that the percentage of men aged 25-54 participating in the labor force declined to a record low of 88.8% in November. And that was BEFORE the release of the new World of Warcraft expansion. The chart goes back to 1948 and shows that the idea women first entered the workforce en masse after WWII or in the 1970s simply isn’t true; about one-third of women have always had to work. The increase in the percentage of women participating in the workforce is predominantly the result of young women who previously got married and had children while being supported by a husband now working instead of or in addition to having a family. The chart is also a little misleading in that it only measures to age 54. One of the chief impacts of more women entering the workforce is that men over the age of 60, who had previously been much more inclined to work, exited the workforce en masse thanks to the establishment of Social Security and Medicare.
So, as I have often said, the primary benefit to society from employing young women is to pay for old men collecting retirement. In return for which the societal costs include declining marriage rates, skyrocketing illegitimacy rates, lower average wages for both men and women, reduced productivity, and demographic decline. This would not appear to be either a rational or sustainable policy for any nation, especially considering that the first attempted solution, importing third-world workers to replace the missing children, has not worked out well for any nation that has adopted it. The choice is as stark as it is simple. Either abandon the notion of sexual equality and return to the traditional model where 70% of women are occupied with raising families or experience complete societal collapse.
On a tangential note, I saw this in the comment’s at CR’s place. I don’t see it as a positive indicator: A friend picked up a hitch-hiker in the National Park last week and gave him a ride, and it turned out he was a marine that had done 3 tours in the sandbox, but apparently our military is getting picky about who they allow to re-up, and he told my friend, “I hope something happens in Korea, so I can go back to work.” It is a time-honored fact of history that when men cannot find jobs, the rulers of society attempt to keep them occupied killing people somewhere else.