Federal Jobs (US and Canada)
An article in yesterday's National Post announces that women now outnumber men in "core federal government employment." Since just 1995, the balance in federal bureaucracy has shifted from 54.1% male to 54.2% female. Much of this shift is attributed to a 33% cut in less-skilled jobs over the past decade. Men held 61% of the executive jobs in this survey.
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (2004), there have also been declines in the number of "blue-collar" federal jobs (non-postal) in this country. Women have made gains in the technical and professional "white-collar" categories, but there have been declines in the number of women employed in clerical positions. The total employment split was 56% to 44%; interestingly, only 39% of those retiring in 2004 were female. According to testimony by the Rhonda Trent, president of Federally Employed Women (2007, PDF), women made up 47.1% of the total federal workforce in 2005, but only 26.2% of the Senior Executive Service.
It seems that the frequently mentioned phenomenon of greater diversity in male status (men outnumber women on the lowest and highest tiers) also applies in federal employment. This does not strike me as a merit-based system, although it could be education-based. While women have been outpacing men in education in recent years, the average age of the federal workers in the U.S. sample was 46.7 -- a generation that would have entered college around the time I was born. Canada seems to be doing a better job of equality than the U.S., which doesn't surprise me at all. <LOLCAT> Hai, I can emigrait now plz? </LOLCAT> I'm also trying to figure out how women could be retiring less often than men. It could be that 2004 was just a fluke. Another option is that women leave without retiring -- since women tend to live longer than men, it seems unlikely that they were "dying in the saddle."
According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (2004), there have also been declines in the number of "blue-collar" federal jobs (non-postal) in this country. Women have made gains in the technical and professional "white-collar" categories, but there have been declines in the number of women employed in clerical positions. The total employment split was 56% to 44%; interestingly, only 39% of those retiring in 2004 were female. According to testimony by the Rhonda Trent, president of Federally Employed Women (2007, PDF), women made up 47.1% of the total federal workforce in 2005, but only 26.2% of the Senior Executive Service.
It seems that the frequently mentioned phenomenon of greater diversity in male status (men outnumber women on the lowest and highest tiers) also applies in federal employment. This does not strike me as a merit-based system, although it could be education-based. While women have been outpacing men in education in recent years, the average age of the federal workers in the U.S. sample was 46.7 -- a generation that would have entered college around the time I was born. Canada seems to be doing a better job of equality than the U.S., which doesn't surprise me at all. <LOLCAT> Hai, I can emigrait now plz? </LOLCAT> I'm also trying to figure out how women could be retiring less often than men. It could be that 2004 was just a fluke. Another option is that women leave without retiring -- since women tend to live longer than men, it seems unlikely that they were "dying in the saddle."