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Comment by 4mitkumar | Hacker News Reader

> more men are unemployed ...

Am I reading the data (1) wrong?

1. https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/latest.htm#LFPRates

You're looking at "labor force participation rate" instead of "unemployment rate". The difference is that people who aren't looking for work are "not participating" but not "unemployed".

Further down that page you'll find:

https://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/NEWSTATS/latest/unemployment.ht...

where the unemployment rates are given: 4.8% for women and 4.9% for men. In a strong economy like we have now, the difference is minor, but in economic down times, the difference is striking. In 2010, the unemployment rates were was 11% for men and 8.4% for women:

https://www.macrotrends.net/2511/unemployment-rate-men-women

> The difference is that people who aren't looking for work are "not participating" but not "unemployed".

If you're a stay-at-home parent then you would fall under the "not participating" category, no? I think that's part of the problem for women in that they are often pressured to raise a family and forego a career.

> If you're a stay-at-home parent then you would fall under the "not participating" category, no?

If you are so by preference, yes. If you are a stay at home parent because you can't, despite actively looking, find work that pays enough to be to be a net gain after daycare, you are unemployed.

Or they choose to raise a family and stay home while their husband works. They have that option far more often than men do.

You're right, cultural norms work both ways. Work needs to be done on both sides so that both genders are free to choose what they do with their lives.

No, that's just unrelated to the definition of unemployed. Participation = (employed + unemployed) / total people in working age. If someone is not looking for work, then they are not considered unemployed.

Though you might argue even with equal unemployment ratios, this brings the number of unemployed men higher than the number of women.

You're not classed as unemployed if you're a stay-at-home mother. Likely some of those do so because of social norms, not because they don't want a career.

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