Attempting to counter Democratic rhetoric of a "war on women", Mitt Romney countered that women had lost more jobs under Obama and that that was the true anti-woman approach. (After all, as previously mentioned, when polled, women seem to support the "war on the women" which makes that notion rather unsustainable). There appear to be some substantial problems with Romney's alternate assertion though. As the New York Times Economix blog argues:
Mitt Romney has been saying all along that he wants smaller government. On Tuesday, he added that he was angry that so many women have lost jobs in the last three years. But one thing that happens when you shrink government is that women lose jobs.
The article does also correctly note that due to men typically going into jobs riskier both in terms of physical threat and vulnerability to the economic cycle, more men have lost jobs throughout this recession and in the previous recession. Declining tax revenue then results in a greater percentage of female job losses towards the end of a recession. The article also notes that men seem to be somewhat less picky about the types of jobs that they're willing to work. In a Room For Debate piece on whether Romney still needs to court conservatives one author noted that:
He should continue to focus on encouraging private sector job growth and women's economic empowerment
Are these ideas compatible or contradictory? Given the arguments in favor of free or heavily subsidized daycare, you also have to ask how many of these female employees actually make a net positive contribution to society through their involvement in the paid workforce. Just today I ran across a Globe and Mail article on the increased household expenses of a dual-income family in which both parents where full-time executives. Amongst their lifestyle adjustments the article notes
... a live-in nanny, which they calculate will be cheaper than paying daycare fees for three children.
With executive compensation generally being relatively high, both parents working full-time might produce net positive income, but what percentage of this disappears when accounting for the expense of a full-time nanny? This is one reason why although most stay-at-home moms are in "poor" families that poverty may mean little to nothing to the families' standard of living. Similarly, an increase in GDP from more mothers working outside the home may be meaningless as such calculations would sum up both the mother's employment income and the income paid to those caring for the child rather than accounting for the net impact. What fraction of current female employment amounts to a de-facto subsidy of and incentive to divorce?
Consider the following:
Republicans have gotten the short end of the stick from women in presidential elections since the 1980s partly because the economic interests of women have diverged from those of men. Increases in non-marriage and divorce mean that fewer men and women are pooling their income. The economists Lena Edlund, Laila Haider and Rohini Pande assert that the decline in marriage helps explain why women have become more left-wing in both the United States and in Europe. ... Similarity among women does not imply unanimity. Married women ... are clearly more politically conservative: About 45 percent identify as or lean Republican, compared with 31 percent of single women.
I'm just not sure that there's a politically viable way to reverse that divergence. The closest starter I can think of that might just work would be presumptive joint custody in the event of divorce as such seems to be the key factor as to why women divorce their husbands far more often than vice-versa.
