Before I attend the sessions of the American Economic Association held here in Atlanta, I am going to be upbeat. Here are three positive effects of the economic disaster of the last 24 months.
Because land prices are so cheap, conservancies and state and local governments are buying more to get it off the market and to keep it from commercial development: More swamps in the Florida Everglades and bluffs in Oregon have been protected from condo developers and shopping mall speculators. Everyone wins: When wild lands, parks, and green spaces are created from land that is falling in price, the very developers who slashed the prices win — they have a buyer — and prices stop falling and the already developed land retains more value.
Another piece of good news is that the recession helped households curb their spending and save more. In this recession Americans are spending, on average, 95 percent of what they earn. In the mid 2000s, American households spent over 100 percent of what they earned. When households have savings, they can withstand unexpected car repairs, a cut in hours, and even periods of unemployment.
The last upside from the down economy is that in a few months, more American workers will be women than men. This means men and women will find more empathy and good will towards each other. So many men have lost their jobs — 75 percent of job losers in this recession are men — and women are the majority workers in the expanding fields: health and education. Gender role convergence is a good thing. Fathers will be the primary parents and mothers the bread winner. No longer will men have to bear the burden of working to support the family, showing love and affection by pounding the pavement. They will experience the short school day and housework tedium. Women can understand men’s isolation from children when they work long hours, and the pressure of being depended upon.
An optimistic frame boosts resilience and resilience helps humans cope. The 2010 economy will need a lot of that capacity. But I aim to be upbeat. Happy New Year.
10 Responses to The Upside to the Down Economy
goxewu - January 4, 2010 at 9:56 am
How does Prof. Ghilarducci know that a workplace majority of women means that “men and women will find more empathy and good will toward each other”? Could it not be equally if not more likely that men will evidence less, that they’ll resent women taking “their” jobs, that relegated to being stay-at-home dads, they’ll drink more, beat their wives and kids more, and become even angrier anti-feminists? Most family men’s egos are, you know, tied rather tightly to their being providers and breadwinners for their families, and few men can really accept the role of homemaker while their wives go off to put food on the table and roofs over their heads.
blog21 - January 4, 2010 at 10:47 am
“they’ll drink more, beat their wives and kids more, and become even angrier anti-feminists”You mean I’ll beat my wife more than I already do?I don’t disagree that there could be more resentment, but what an ignorant, inflammatory comment.
cwinton - January 4, 2010 at 11:19 am
In truth we don’t know where we will end up. Prof. Ghilarducci has tried to note some things that are potential positives in her mind’s eye, but there are negatives associated with each for any number of reasons other than those articulated. We measure job creation in thousands per year, but job losses now total over 7 million. Other than the health care jobs needed to tend to our growing glut of aging baby boomers, there are at best grim prospects for anything other than low wage service jobs. Somehow this does not appear to be a very sustainable approach for our children’s future security. We have been remarkably successful in the past at reinventing ourselves following upheavals such as the Civil War and the Great Depression, so we need to be optimistic we can do so again. One thing for sure is that we need to get away from the false promises delivered by the gambling mentality that characterizes Wall Street style investment. Let’s hope the current administration’s attempts to push green technology will provide the kind of entrepreneurial rebirth these times call for.
goxewu - January 4, 2010 at 11:28 am
Re #2:I was speaking collectively: i.e., the total amount of wife-beating by men might rise. That’s neither ignorant (wife-beating does occur) nor inflammatory (there’s no advocacy for wife-beating in my comment), unless one believes that no wife-beating at all exists in our society, so it can’t possibly increase.Bit of a hair-trigger with blog21. Did I come too close?
dank48 - January 4, 2010 at 11:44 am
One other (perhaps overly sweeping) upside to a down economy is that a lot of the BS that found currency in fatter times is now seen as something we really don’t have time, money, or energy for. Goxewu, in my opinion, needs to read the Grimms’ Maerchen “The Clever Housemaid.” In the story, the family has a clever housemaid. One evening the family is at supper, and one of the children is sent down cellar to draw a pitcher of beer from the cask. The child doesn’t return. Concisely: one by one the family goes downstairs to find out what the problem is, and no one returns. When the housemaid is the last person still upstairs, she ventures down to the cellar herself. She finds the whole family sitting on a bench weeping. Turns out the first kid was drawing beer from the cask when he looked up and saw an ax stuck in the wall. At the thought that someday one of the family might be drawing beer and that the ax might fall and kill that poor soul, the kid fell aweeping, as did each of the family members who came down to see what was wrong.Hearing this, the clever housemaid reached up and pulled the ax out of the wall and set it on the floor, then she went back upstairs. Ever after the family talked of their clever housemaid. It’s better in the original. But imo worrying about increased wife-beating because men resent having “their” jobs “taken away” from them is unproductive, futile, and dim.
goxewu - January 4, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Re #5:I read a probably derivative version of the tale entitled “The Three Sillies.” But even in its original, I don’t know what it has to do with, so to speak, the price of tea in China.a) I’m not “worrying” about possible increased wife-beating (which is, please understand, emblematic of possible increased male resentment over a majority of workers now being female) any more than Prof. Ghilarducci is “celebrating” the possible increased “empathy and good will.” I’m simply saying that it’s an at least equal possibility. b) I’m not proposing solutions to any of the untoward consequences of the recession, so “unproductive” and “futile” are irrelevant. (If “dim” means pessimistic, as in “taking the dim view,” I’ll accept that. If it’s supposed to mean that I’m stupid, well…)Anyway: Women are the victims of domestic violence ten times more often than are women, and unemployed men are twice as likely to commit severe spousal abuse than men with full-time job. Connect the dots.http://www.aflcio.org/issues/jobseconomy/women/violence.cfmhttp://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/01/domestic-violence-and-recession-35-dead-in-philadelphia-in-0/http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/04/domestic-violence-discrimination-women-recession
dank48 - January 4, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Nuts, Goxewu. Nobody is saying that you are dim. I’m saying that responding to an article about possible effects of a down economy by worrying about something that just might happen as a result of the possible effects, etc., is unproductive, futile, and dim. Not you; your response to the article. My guess is that everyone is aware that more women than men are the victims of spousal abuse. Also, no one was accusing you of “proposing solutions to any of the untoward consequences of the recession” or to anything else, but that doesn’t mean your comments weren’t unproductive or futile. In my opinion, they are; frankly, I thought you produced a remarkably irrelevant smokescreen. I said “dim” because “dumb” would be rude; I don’t think you are, but I certainly think your comments were.Finally, it’s petty of me, I realize, but before telling people to connect the dots, it’s perhaps a good idea to make sure one has done so oneself: “Anyway: Women are the victims of domestic violence ten times more often than are men, and unemployed men are twice as likely to commit severe spousal abuse as men with full-time jobs.” One sentence; three errors.Of course, I’d be hard put to justify my bothering with this, as if my comments were any less futile or, well, dim than yours.
goxewu - January 4, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Comment not dumb. No three errors in sentence. Women spouses get beat up lots more than men spouses. Men with no jobs beat up spouses lots more than men with jobs. Men without jobs, men stay home with kids, not likely to behave better. Probably behave worse. “Fathers will be the primary parents and mothers the bread winner. No longer will men have to bear the burden of working to support the family…” probably a crock. If dumb to say something bad might happen with more women in workplace than men, just as dumb to say something good might happen. If goxewu comment dumb, then Ghilarducci post dumb, too.
dank48 - January 4, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Three errors in sentence:Women are the victims of domestic violence ten times more often than are women[1], and unemployed men are twice as likely to commit severe spousal abuse than[2] men with full-time job[3]. [1] Read “men.”[2] Read “as.”[3] Read “jobs.”Connect your own dots.
goxewu - January 4, 2010 at 3:13 pm
I read on some other thread that dank48 was doing a public service as a “close reader” by being the Hall Monitor of typos. Forgot. Sorry.