Monday, November 25, 2013

Vox Day on the revolutionary impact of the entrance of millions of women into the workforce

Vox Day notes the revolution in our workforce in the 60's and 70's:

I always find it remarkable, and perhaps even a little depressing, how few people are able to grasp that the primary consequence of the addition of 70 million working women, all of whom were already consumers, to the labor force, could never have been anything else but to lower wages.

One can debate whether female workers are more or less productive than male workers, and one can certainly debate whether the societal effects were beneficial or negative, but the one thing that cannot be denied, on logical, theoretical, historical, or empirical grounds, is that the post-1950 doubling of the female labor force has had a severely depressing effect on American wages.

Of course there are very good and very bad aspects to this massive increase in employment of women that took place in the latter half of the 20th century in America.

On the good side, it brought the considerable talents and perspectives of women to bear on our work life, it provided employment of millions of women who needed it, it inspired young girls to aspire to better education, accomplishments, etc.

On the bad side, it obviously depressed wages, it made many families dependent on two-wage earner arrangements, and, perhaps most perniciously, it made increasingly extraneous the labor of the most marginalized segment of the workforce, which was mostly black men.

I suspect that the large-scale unemployment and family abandonment by black men over the past half-century is due in large part to massive increases in welfare (making the poor/black husband/father economically superfluous) and to massive increases in women in the workforce (making the poor/black husband/father economically untenable).

Don't expect to encounter this simple observation anywhere in academia or in the media for the next thousand years.


27 comments:

  1. I suspect that the large-scale unemployment and family abandonment by black men over the past half-century is due in large part to massive increases in welfare

    Of course you do, since you are incapable of having an original thought and are just parroting conservative propaganda.

    If you look beyond the US, including countries without or with very limited "welfare", you'll see a very similar pattern in black communities, e.g. in the Caribbean. Therefore, it probably has very little if anything to do with welfare.

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  2. “most perniciously, it made increasingly extraneous the labor of the most marginalized segment of the workforce, which was mostly black men.”

    It’s nice to see Egnor finally admit that the problems in the black community are ultimately due to racism. Don’t expect him to admit what he’s inadvertently done for a thousand years.

    -KW

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    1. @KW:

      "With the exception of the Democrats in your crazy racist conspiracy theory that assumes blacks are lazy, greedy and easily duped,"

      I merely listed historical facts about the Democrat Party's policy. Just a matter of historical record.

      [all Democrats you are referring to are Republicans now]

      Nearly all of the Dixiecrats remained Democrats until they died. They just doffed their sheets, and they rose to high positions in the Democrat leadership.

      Of course the modern generation of white voters in the South are heavily Republican, just corresponding to the era in which they are no longer segregationists and KKKer's.

      Hmmm...

      Delete
  3. I don't think these observations are particularly keen. Increase in labor supply tends to decrease wages. So?

    I suppose I'd like to see what actions Egnor would like to propose in response to the trends. Tell women to stop working? Too late.

    Hoo

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    1. I merely propose honesty about the trend. The massive influx of women into the workforce had profound effects, good and bad.

      Don't you think it odd that it's not the subject of more objective academic discussion?

      Delete
    2. What makes you think the subject has not been discussed in academia? Did you even look?

      Hoo

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    3. For example, here is D. Acemoglu and D. Autor, Women, War, and Wages: The Effect of Female Labor Supply on the Wage Structure at Midcentury, Journal of Political Economy 112, 497 (2004).

      We exploit the military mobilization for World War II to investigate the effects of female labor supply on the wage structure. The mobilization drew many women into the workforce permanently. But the impact was not uniform across states. In states with greater mobilization of men, women worked more after the war and in 1950, though not in 1940. These induced shifts in female labor supply lowered female and male wages and increased earnings inequality between high school- and college-educated men. It appears that at midcentury, women were closer substitutes for high school men than for those with lower skills.

      Hoo

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    4. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyNovember 25, 2013 at 8:43 AM

      Wow. An article! Good google goggles!

      Delete
    5. Yes, an article published by an academic. Our host wasn't even capable of finding that.

      Hoo

      Delete
    6. I'll ask one more time: what would Michael Egnor like to do about female participation in labor force? Go back to the prewar days? Make women stay at home?

      Hoo

      Delete
  4. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyNovember 25, 2013 at 8:41 AM

    Doc: "I suspect that the large-scale unemployment and family abandonment by black men over the past half-century is due in large part to massive increases in welfare..."

    I agree. And it's not just money - I would point directly to Progressive policy. The promulgation of a fictional account of an "authentic black culture", a thriving racial grievance industry, acceptance of intoxicants, the dissolution of the black family and the presence of unoccupied and unfathered single black men on the streets, all combined with a celebrotainment industry that makes billions in profit from the glorification of violence and the abuse of women is an invitation to both.

    Moreover, the Jeebus McLightworker Administration policy mix has been a social disaster for black Americans:

    Median family income for black Americans has declined a whopping 10.9 percent during the Obama administration....

    The poverty rate for blacks is now 25.8 percent...

    The black labor force participation rate, which rose throughout the 1980s and 1990s, has declined for the past decade and quite sharply under Obama to 61.4 percent.

    The black unemployment rate, according to Pew Research, stands at 13.4 percent. Among black, male, high school dropouts, PBS' Paul Salmon reports, the unemployment rate is a staggering 95 percent.

    --- Politico (8/13)

    At one Memphis TN high school,

    The staggering number of pregnant girls at Frayser High amounted to nearly 11 percent of the school's approximately 800 students, WMC-TV reported...

    [And while] the numbers at Frayser High were staggering, they weren't that far out of the ordinary for Memphis, where the teen pregnancy rate is between 15 and 25 percent, according to MSNBC.

    --- Fox News (2011)

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  5. Paging Dr. Egnor.

    His latest post at ENV is 100 percent wrong. He should read the corrections appended to the Slate article, particularly this paragraph:

    Joshua Akey was not contacted prior to publication of this article. This article incorrectly attributed ideas to him. Some of these ideas were paraphrased in the New York Times and were then misinterpreted by the author. Akey did not speculate that sexual selection of the EDAR genetic mutation was influenced by male preference for small breasts, and this article should not have attributed this idea to him.

    A retraction seems in order.

    Hoo

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    1. A little "he said-she said" clusterf*ck. Darwinists never mean what they say-- they're always quoted out of context, or paraphrased, or whatever.

      My post is about idiot Darwinian stories. Darwinian BS is Darwinian BS. Spin doesn't make it better.

      Kudos for reading ENV, though.

      Delete
    2. Egnor,

      You wrote at ENV:

      Evolutionary "scientists" are in a frenzy over whether the persistence of the gene EDAR in East Asians was because natural selection favored more sweat glands or smaller breasts.

      It turns out that none of the evolutionary biologists mentioned in the Slate article suggested that. The story was made up by the feminist Slate author. You relied on her story to make your point. Have the courage to admit that you were mistaken.

      Hoo

      Delete
    3. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyNovember 25, 2013 at 11:33 AM

      Read the articles linked. Sounds like an argument in the freshman dorm or the I Tappa Kegga rec room.

      Delete
    4. 'He said that I said the you said that she said that they said..."

      Darwinists get caught saying idiot things.

      Sniff...

      Delete
    5. Adm. G Boggs, Glenbeckistan NavyNovember 25, 2013 at 12:41 PM

      It's the fault of The Replicators, animating gigantic lumbering meat robots and manipulating them by remote control. I have that on good authority. :-)

      Delete
    6. Whatever your defense is, doc, this line is a complete misrepresentation:

      Evolutionary "scientists" are in a frenzy over whether the persistence of the gene EDAR in East Asians was because natural selection favored more sweat glands or smaller breasts.

      And now that you are aware that this story is bogus, the misrepresentation becomes deliberate. In other words, a lie.

      An honest man would issue a retraction. Not holding my breath. ENV has no editorial standards.

      Hoo

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    7. Retract what? What some dissembling boob said some other dissembling boob?

      The story stands as is. Darwinists are assholes, and I have no intention to dissect their panicked causistry. It's becoming more common for these frauds to panic when their pseudoscience hits the press. I find it amusing.

      Delete
    8. You wrote about the "boobs" in the first place. No one forced you to. It turns out that your story was fake. You insist that it is accurate. Heh.

      Hoo

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    9. Of course, ENV readers can see that your story is bogus even without your retraction if they are curious enough to click on the link you supplied.

      The linked article begins with a warning: Update, Feb. 26, 2013: This story misrepresented the views of Joshua Akey. Corrections and a full explanation are below.

      How did you miss it? Didn't even read the article? That's the only plausible explanation I can find.

      Hoo

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    10. "Misrepresented views" does not mean misrepresented what he said. The most reasonable take is that this Darwinist said stupid stuff to the reporter, who wrote a synopsis of what he said, then he said that her synposis "misrepresented" his views, which means that he was too candid and regrets saying stupid Darwinian stuff for attribution.

      Darwinists always get "misrepresented" when they get caught saying idiot Darwinist things.

      Delete
    11. Hoo,

      I suspect that Egnor hardly ever reads past the headline, and occasionally perhaps the subtitle, of articles he pretends to have read, otherwise he'll completely misinterpret the school year 5 level text he's reading.

      When I was a pathologist, writing biopsy reports for surgeons, I was told to never write any reports that couldn't be understood by a reasonably intelligent 12 year old.

      Egnor still can't admit that he misunderstood Benjamin Libet in 'Mind Time' (a reasonably basic book) when he claimed that the brain antedates sensory perception to the time it's detected by the peripheral sensory receptor, not to the time that the sensory stimulus reaches the brain (the actual case), as 'evidence' that the peripheral nervous system is self-aware. Like the neurons in the heart.

      Egnor,

      And anyhow. How do you know that the scientist spoke to the journalist? And that the journalist didn't misrepresent what was said? You're making stuff up again.

      Delete
    12. Egnor: Misrepresented views" does not mean misrepresented what he said. The most reasonable take is that this Darwinist said stupid stuff to the reporter, who wrote a synopsis of what he said, then he said that her synposis "misrepresented" his views...

      Stop digging, dude. The scientist (Akey) has never spoken to the Slate editor (Waldman). She read a paraphrase of his words the New York Times and misinterpreted that.

      Here is her first correction:

      Correction, Feb. 26, 2013: Joshua Akey was not contacted prior to publication of this article. This article incorrectly attributed ideas to him. Some of these ideas were paraphrased in the New York Times and were then misinterpreted by the author. Akey did not speculate that sexual selection of the EDAR genetic mutation was influenced by male preference for small breasts, and this article should not have attributed this idea to him. The implication that sexual selection of EDAR required female passivity or male pickiness was the author’s own interpretation. We apologize for misrepresenting Akey’s position.

      So, to recap: You find a breathless third-hand account protesting a "sexist" theory of sexual selection. You disregard two corrections retracting that account and a warning preceding the article and publish a post based on it. You are aware that the Slate editor was mistaken in attributing the views you ridicule. You still insist that your post is accurate.

      Well, I suppose lying for a good cause is not a sin.

      Hoo

      Delete
  6. Don't expect Egnor to retract anything, ever. Issuing a retraction requires character and integrity.

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    1. Egnor issues retractions occasionally, so I don't think he is a completely lost cause.

      KKK and Gay-Gay-Gay share a tactic
      Oops

      I think that upon further reflection he will retract this one, too.

      Hoo

      Delete
    2. Or maybe not. Maybe he is OK with distorting the record.

      Hoo

      Delete