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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

admin2012-02-29  58
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.
What happened to the women workforce during World War II?
选项 A、It decreased suddenly.
B、It contributed to the high unemployment rate.
C、It enjoyed a boost.
D、It took over the male-dominated professions.
答案C
解析 根据题干中的World War II将本题出处定位到第六段首句。该句提到，特别是每当有像大萧条和第二次世界大战这样的具有划时代意义的大事发生时，女性就业人数便会大幅攀升，[C]中的boost是对文中提到的bumps的同义转述，故答案为[C]，同时排除[A]。[B]与原文意思相反；第六 段首句提到，在一些曾被男性主导的劳动岗位中，女性所占比例也在不断增加，但没有说控制了这些领域，故排除[D]。
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