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Women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time, a historic reversal caused by long-term changes

admin2012-05-17  39
问题     Women are on the verge of outnumbering men in the workforce for the first time, a historic reversal caused by long-term changes in women’s roles and massive job losses for men during this recession.
    Women held 49.83% of the nation’s 132 million jobs in June and they’re gaining the vast majority of jobs in the few sectors of the economy that are growing, according to the most recent numbers available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    That’s a record high for a measure that’s been growing steadily for decades and accelerating during the recession. At the current pace, women will become a majority of workers in October or November.
    "It was a long historical slog (沉重缓慢的前进) to get to this point," says labor economist Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
    The change reflects the growing importance of women as wage earners, but it doesn’t show full equality, Hartmann says. On average, women work fewer hours than men, hold more part-time jobs and earn 77% of what men make, she says. Men also still dominate higher-paying executive ranks.
    Women have been a growing share of the once heavily male labor force for nearly a century, recording big bumps during epochal (划时代的) events such as the Depression and World War II. This time, the boost came from a severe recession that has been brutal (无情的) on male-dominated professions such as construction and manufacturing.
    The only parts of the economy still growing — health care, education and government — have traditionally hired mostly women. That dominance has increased in part because federal stimulus funding directed money to education, health care and state and local governments.
    The gender transformation is especially remarkable in local government’s 14.6 million-person workforce. Cities, schools, water authorities and other local legal power have cut 86,000 men from payrolls during the recession — while adding 167,000 women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    "Unemployment among men isn’t going to last forever," says University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan. "People will move from construction and manufacturing to industries that are creating new jobs." Mulligan expects the portion of jobs held by women to peak slightly above 50% this year, then drop below half when the economy recovers and more men find work.  
It is anticipated by economist Casey Mulligan that______.
选项 A、there will be equality in workforce numbers by the end of this year
B、it will be much easier for men to find work compared with women
C、the image that the man has to be the breadwinner will soon change
D、men will exceed women in the workforce with the economic recovery
答案D
解析 根据题干中的Casey Mulligan将本题出处定位到末段末句。该句提到，穆利根预计女性把持工作的比例在今年将会达到顶峰，稍微超过50％，然后，当经济复苏、更多男性找到工作时，这一比例将会下滑到50％以下，[D](随着经济复苏，男性劳动力的人数会超过女性)正是对穆利根这一预计的同义转述，故答案为[D]。[A]与穆利根提到的the portion…above 50％ thisyear矛盾，故排除；文中只提到more men find work，并未说男性更容易找到工作，故排除[B]；[C]在文中未提及，故排除。
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大学英语四级

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