Jonathan Steuer of New York has the familiar characteristics of an “evolved man.” He can speak fluently about the different waves of feminism, and he shares child care and household responsibilities with his wife.
But on the subject of job loss, he contends that the stakes are much higher for men.
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Mr. Steuer, 43, was recently laid off from his job at a small research business. “It’s hard not to imagine yourself as the breadwinner,” he said. “A lot of your ego eggs are in the job basket. I can’t shake the psychology that I’m supposed to provide.”
His wife, Marjorie Ingall, a columnist at The Jewish Daily Forward and a contributing writer at Self magazine, says she believes that it is impossible not to absorb the cultural message that the man is supposed to provide for his family.
As job losses reverberate across the economy, differences in “his” and “her” layoffs are beginning to take shape — revealing gender dynamics that may not have been as apparent when the Dow was at 14,000.
Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of “The Female Brain” and a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, says that women who lose their jobs “aren’t going to take as much of a self-esteem hit” as men. That is because the most potent form of positive social feedback for many men comes from within the hierarchy of the workplace. By contrast, she said, women may have “many sources of self-esteem — such as their relationships with other people — that are not exclusively embedded within their jobs.”
She said that over the past six months, her clinic has had an increase in the number of men seeking help for difficulties related to job loss.
Terrence Real, a family therapist and the founder of Real Relational Solutions in Arlington, Mass., said the difference in reactions could be explained by the idea of performance esteem.
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“Everyone who has written about male psychology has acknowledged that men base their sense of self on the maxim that ‘I have worth because of what I do,’ ” Mr. Real said. The feeling is that “you are only as good as your last game or your last job,” he said.
In his practice over the past 12 months, Mr. Real says, he has seen a roughly 20 percent uptick in the number of men seeking help because of the economic downturn.
Dr. Richard A. Friedman, a professor of psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, says he has seen a sharp increase in distress among male patients who were already in treatment before to the economic crisis. In addition, he said he had evaluated 20 to 25 new male patients whose chief complaint was anxiety and depression because of the crisis.
“Considering that women tend to seek psychiatric help more often that men, what I’m seeing is striking,” he said.
While gender roles are malleable, and many people are adjusting the boundaries, the roles that have been templates for many generations still linger, particularly when it comes to employment. Certainly, a financial provider for a family is going to see a job loss through a much different lens than a single person with no dependents, and more men are primary breadwinners.
According to 2006 federal data, nearly three-quarters of men in two-earner families made more than their wives. And in families where only one person worked, nearly three-quarters of the sole breadwinners were men.
David Anderson of San Diego recently lost his job at an equipment financing company. He says his struggle in dealing with his layoff is colored by the gender roles that he and his wife have cultivated. They have two children, and he was the primary breadwinner. His wife currently continues to work part time.
“Gender has shaped the responsibilities my wife and I share,” said Mr. Anderson, 37. “I’d imagine, like a lot of men, I’m struggling with the shame aspect and the feeling that I have to go out and get another job immediately.”
Hilary Black, editor of a new anthology, “The Secret Currency of Love: The Unabashed Truth About Women, Money, and Relationships,” says remnants of those seemingly anachronistic gender roles emerged throughout the essays in the book.
“On one hand, you have the Cinderella syndrome where women want to be taken care of,” Ms. Black said, “but on the other, it’s not seen as socially acceptable to be a stay-at-home dad.”
YET while men may appear to reel more socially and psychologically from job loss, they fare far better when it comes to re-employment.
In a 2002 study, two sociology professors at Wichita State University, Charles S. Koeber and David W. Wright, found that women who were laid off and went on to look for another job were re-employed less often than men in the same position. This was especially the case if the women were married, had previously held a part-time job or had worked in something other than a highly skilled, white-collar job.
The implication, Professor Koeber says, is that women have more of a burden than men to show their commitment to a job after a layoff.
“It looks like employers systematically apply some criteria to women that they don’t to men who are looking for jobs after being laid off,” Professor Koeber said.
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