I would draw your attention to the categories of construction and manufacturing above. Both employ more men than women. You can see just how drastic the hit construction was for men. For manufacturing, in fact, a slightly larger portion of women lost their jobs, but it's still a male dominated industry, so their sheer number of job losses was greater for men. The report says that within goods producing sectors men lost 2.9 million jobs, while women lost only 765,000.

The study continues by pointing out that some industries with heavier concentrations of women fared relatively well. Education and health services are the standouts there. In fact, actual job growth was seen in these industries. That also gave jobless women an advantage over unemployed men at getting some of the few jobs available.

From the chart above, however, I do notice a few oddities. First, despite the fact that financial services and manufacturing are male dominated, though slight, they still saw a larger percentage drop in women than in men. I would have thought such industries would have preferred firing more men, so to keep the gender proportions less lopsided. But natural resources and mining saw the opposite. There, somehow, more women managed to find employment while 9.7% of men lost their jobs.

One thing is clear: men will continue to have a more difficult time finding employment during the recovery than women, given the industries each gender tends to dominate. Construction, in particular, will likely be a major struggle, while education and health services should endure.

(Image Credit: Cliff1066/flickr)

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.