The Effects of Recessions Across Demographic Groups

The burdens of a recession are not spread evenly across demographic groups. As the public and media noticed, from the start of the current recession in December 2007 through June 2009 men accounted for more than three-quarters of net job losses. Other differences have garnered less attention but are just as interesting. During the same period, the employment of single people fell at more than twice the rate that it did for married people and the decline for black workers was one and a half times that for white workers. To provide a more complete understanding of the effect of recessions, this paper examines the different effects of this and previous recessions across a range of demographic categories: sex, marital status, race, age, and education level.

经济衰退的负担并不会在不同人口统计群体间均匀分摊。正如公众与媒体所注意到的，在2007年12月至2009年6月的本轮经济衰退期间，男性的净失业人数占总净失业人数的四分之三以上。其他群体间的差异虽未受到足够关注，但同样具有研究价值。同期，未婚群体的就业降幅是已婚群体的两倍以上，而黑人员工的就业降幅则是白人员工的1.5倍。为更全面地理解经济衰退的影响，本文针对性别、婚姻状况、种族、年龄与受教育水平等多个人口统计类别，分析了本轮及此前历次经济衰退在不同群体间产生的差异化影响。