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Part II: Female Unemployment in North America

In the three countries of North America, the level of female unemployment stood at 4.49 million women in 1996. This figure represents a reduction of 3.6 percent in comparison with the 1984 female unemployment level (4.66 million workers). During this period, the level of male unemployment also fell, by a far greater percentage (12.5 percent). As it is shown in graph 23, the most significant decline in unemployment was reported in the United States, where the unemployment rate fell from 7.6 percent in 1984 to 5.4 percent in 1996; in Canada, this figure fell from 11.3 percent to 9.9 percent during the same period. In Mexico the rate of unemployment for women tended to decrease until 1993; after that it began to grow, reaching its highest level (5.2 percent) in 1995 due to the economic crisis during that year.37

In each of the countries of North America, female unemployment has different characteristics than unemployment affecting male workers. As regards unemployment rates, since 1991, female unemployment rates have been lower than those for men in Canada. In the United States the same trend was observed from 1990 to 1995; however, in 1996 unemployment rates for both men and women were the same at 5.4. In both countries this trend was a result of a substantial increase in the unemployment rate for men associated with recession in the early 1990’s. In Mexico, female unemployment rates have remained higher than those affecting men for the period 1984 to 1996. With respect to unemployment by age group, the highest unemployment rate in each of the three countries prevails among the youngest workers (between 15 and 24). However, in Canada and the United States, young women are subject to lower unemployment rates than their young male counterparts, while in Mexico, the opposite pattern is seen.

In Canada and the United States, women are generally unemployed for shorter periods of time than men; while in Mexico periods of unemployment are similar between men and women. In Canada, the average duration of female unemployment stood at 22.8 weeks in 1996, compared to 25 weeks for men. In the United States, unemployment duration stood at 15.6 weeks for women and 17.7 weeks for men. Both countries observed a declining trend in the periods of unemployment between 1984 and 1990; in 1991 a substantial increase was reported because of the recession. It has since remained stable. In Mexico, however, an average of nine weeks of unemployment was reported for women compared to an average of 8.8 weeks for men in 1996; these levels are lower than those reported in 1995.

There are important differences regarding female unemployment among the three countries as it is shown in Table 4. In Canada, higher overall unemployment rates, longer average unemployment duration and a greater share of unemployed women with prior working experience characterize female unemployment. In Mexico, female unemployment is characterized by lower unemployment rates, a shorter average duration and by a higher incidence of voluntary unemployment. 38 The United States has female unemployment rates between the other two countries, with a high proportion of unemployed women with prior working experience (as in Canada) and a large proportion of women unemployed for involuntary rather than for voluntary reasons. 39

In Canada and the United States, higher rates of female unemployment occur among those sectors of the population with lower educational levels. The highest rates are reported in Canada, where in 1996, women with eight years or less education experienced an unemployment rate of 13.9 percent, more than double the rate for women with university education. In the United States, the unemployment rate for women between the ages of 25 and 64 with less than four years of secondary education stood at 10.7 percent in 1996, a figure five times the rate for women with four years or more of university education. By contrast, in Mexico the female unemployment rate is greatest among women with the highest educational levels. Thus, in 1996, the unemploy-ment rate for women with midlevel and higher education stood at six percent, almost five times the rate for women with six years of education or less. This situation may be partly explained by the fact that more educated workers in Mexico can sustain longer periods of unemployment than those with less education because their levels of income are higher.

Discouraged workers or "hidden unemployment," which refers to those workers who are ready to work but have ceased to look for employment because they believe they will be unable to find anything suitable, is one of the lesser problems affecting female unemployment in North America, since these rates are low for women in all three countries. For example, in Canada, discouraged female workers made up less than one percent of the total work force in 1993. In Mexico, this proportion stood at 1.2 percent in 1996 and in the United States, at less than one percent during the same year. When the "hidden unemployment" rate for female workers is added to the open unemployment rate, female unemployment rates would have increased from 10.6 percent to 11.5 percent in Canada in 1993; from 4.1 percent to 5.3 percent in Mexico in 1996, and from 5.4 percent to 5.7 percent in the United States in the same year.

 


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