"To a much greater extent than in past recessions, men are bearing the brunt. " http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-burns-broadsheet-0403apr03,0,4918952.column Is it the water? In all seriousness, all the exporting/outsourcing of industrial type jobs is probably the cause.
That 1.5% spread could be attributed to the increase in women whoring or stripping. There seemed to be a lot more articles about that trend in the past few months
OK, so I was making a funny. The article was right, though. When we were shopping around for colleges for my daughter a couple of years ago, the gender disparity was striking. Typically it's 60/40 F/M. Some it's 70/30. Where *are* the men going if not to college? That's not a 1.5% spread, that's a whopping 10-20% spread.
Didn't you know there was a gender reversal taking place among the young in Western societies ? After all the self-esteem encouragement given to young women, they all want to be the "bad boy", and the young males have realized the best life is finding a good looking and hopefully rich sugar mommy.
The disparity in college is nothing new. It's been going on for at least a decade. The disparity in layoffs is probably due to women still getting paid less. That's even more true for women's occupations such as nursing and elementary education.
I can't speak for all areas, but in this area elementary school teachers are paid like $70K for a 9 month job and nurses are starting at around $60K. Last I checked, that doesn't qualify for a low paying job.