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Urban trends point to the era of yin skills and the rise of women
By Dee Bruce Sun |
October 18, 2011, Tuesday
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EDITOR'S note: This is the second part of an article by Professor Dee Bruce Sun on the yin and yang of a city or a country. Readers' comments are welcome.
NATURAL endowments and policy orientation shape a city's desirable composition of labor services, including physical, analytical, social and innovative capacities.
A city will thereby be assessed as tending toward yang or toward yin. From an industrial point of view, a city of yang demands more physical capacity and emphasizes manufacturing and construction; a city of yin pursues more services at both high and low ends, such as education, health care, entertainment, tourism and housekeeping.
Understandably, women are well-represented in occupations involving interpersonal skills and communications; by contrast, men predominate in industrial and manufacturing work such as operating equipment to transport and transform materials.
Owing to machinery, technological and processing advances, labor of the yang type has been increasingly automated or routinized. Except probably in the military and athletic arenas, the market is apparently recognizing more labor services of the yin type. And contemporary urbanization is in general facilitating the trend favoring yin.
Behind this long-run projection at the macro level, the rationales are twofold: one, the urbanization experienced in developed economies has demonstrated the trajectory; and two, human behaviors and consumer preference are known as homothetic in terms of income level, and will be revealed along with the growth stages. Therefore, we can cite some examples in the United States in hopes of adjusting our expectations and becoming more adaptive to better decisions in time.
The American labor force has been squeezed since 2008, though only 25 percent of the new unemployed are women. Meanwhile, women are now more than 50 percent of the workforce. As of 2009, women for the first time also hold more managerial and administrative positions (51.5 percent) than men.
Colleges report substantially more female students. Women are granted 60 percent of all bachelor's and master's degrees each year. In addition, women obtain more than half of law and medical degrees, and make up 45 percent of the payroll of law firms, and more than 50 percent of the banking and insurance employments. More than 54 percent of accountants are women.
Not surprisingly, 13 of the 15 projected fastest-growing job categories (excepting janitors and computer engineers) now have a larger share of female hires. In contrast, traditionally male-dominated categories are downsizing. American manufacturing has lost 6 million jobs since 2000, one-third of its entire labor force, where new hires are few, and the prospects of a turnaround are dim.
As a result the income of male laborers is, on average, declining. According to Dr Michael Greenstone, an economist in MIT, the median real wage for American males has actually fallen by 32 percent from its peak in 1973. Currently the unemployment rate of American men of primary working age is at a record high of nearly 20 percent; 40 years ago it was under 5 percent.
Two prime causes underpin these changes. The level of women's accomplishments has risen considerably, due to their own efforts, and social progress allowing them to make better use of their talents. Also, at the current stage, helped by technological and institutional innovations, overall job requirements are moving toward in favor of the traits which are traditionally female: patience, sensitivity, communication skills, and people savviness.
As a consequence, a rising chunk of American household income is brought in by mothers, 42 percent now, compared with merely 5 percent in the 1970s. Overall, women are now the prime breadwinners in four out of 10 American families.
The Author is Professor of Business at California State University at Long Beach. Born in Shanghai, he went to study in the US in early 1980s, and got M.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Management there. He has served China Construction Bank as its general manager of Investment Banking Department and the IPO Office, and Shenzhen Development Bank as CIO. He was a Fulbright Scholar to China. He achieves many projects and awards in China, publishes 14 books in Chinese, and becomes influential through his newspaper columns. Currently he lives in Los Angeles.
(brucesunchina@gmail.com)
NATURAL endowments and policy orientation shape a city's desirable composition of labor services, including physical, analytical, social and innovative capacities.
A city will thereby be assessed as tending toward yang or toward yin. From an industrial point of view, a city of yang demands more physical capacity and emphasizes manufacturing and construction; a city of yin pursues more services at both high and low ends, such as education, health care, entertainment, tourism and housekeeping.
Understandably, women are well-represented in occupations involving interpersonal skills and communications; by contrast, men predominate in industrial and manufacturing work such as operating equipment to transport and transform materials.
Owing to machinery, technological and processing advances, labor of the yang type has been increasingly automated or routinized. Except probably in the military and athletic arenas, the market is apparently recognizing more labor services of the yin type. And contemporary urbanization is in general facilitating the trend favoring yin.
Behind this long-run projection at the macro level, the rationales are twofold: one, the urbanization experienced in developed economies has demonstrated the trajectory; and two, human behaviors and consumer preference are known as homothetic in terms of income level, and will be revealed along with the growth stages. Therefore, we can cite some examples in the United States in hopes of adjusting our expectations and becoming more adaptive to better decisions in time.
The American labor force has been squeezed since 2008, though only 25 percent of the new unemployed are women. Meanwhile, women are now more than 50 percent of the workforce. As of 2009, women for the first time also hold more managerial and administrative positions (51.5 percent) than men.
Colleges report substantially more female students. Women are granted 60 percent of all bachelor's and master's degrees each year. In addition, women obtain more than half of law and medical degrees, and make up 45 percent of the payroll of law firms, and more than 50 percent of the banking and insurance employments. More than 54 percent of accountants are women.
Not surprisingly, 13 of the 15 projected fastest-growing job categories (excepting janitors and computer engineers) now have a larger share of female hires. In contrast, traditionally male-dominated categories are downsizing. American manufacturing has lost 6 million jobs since 2000, one-third of its entire labor force, where new hires are few, and the prospects of a turnaround are dim.
As a result the income of male laborers is, on average, declining. According to Dr Michael Greenstone, an economist in MIT, the median real wage for American males has actually fallen by 32 percent from its peak in 1973. Currently the unemployment rate of American men of primary working age is at a record high of nearly 20 percent; 40 years ago it was under 5 percent.
Two prime causes underpin these changes. The level of women's accomplishments has risen considerably, due to their own efforts, and social progress allowing them to make better use of their talents. Also, at the current stage, helped by technological and institutional innovations, overall job requirements are moving toward in favor of the traits which are traditionally female: patience, sensitivity, communication skills, and people savviness.
As a consequence, a rising chunk of American household income is brought in by mothers, 42 percent now, compared with merely 5 percent in the 1970s. Overall, women are now the prime breadwinners in four out of 10 American families.
The Author is Professor of Business at California State University at Long Beach. Born in Shanghai, he went to study in the US in early 1980s, and got M.A. in Economics and Ph.D. in Management there. He has served China Construction Bank as its general manager of Investment Banking Department and the IPO Office, and Shenzhen Development Bank as CIO. He was a Fulbright Scholar to China. He achieves many projects and awards in China, publishes 14 books in Chinese, and becomes influential through his newspaper columns. Currently he lives in Los Angeles.
(brucesunchina@gmail.com)
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