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Comment by chongli | Hacker News Reader

Your hypothesis is interesting but it doesn’t fit the data. The flattened trend for this age group began suddenly during the Great Recession of 2008.

I think it’s more likely that a lot of women in this age group suddenly lost their jobs in the Great Recession and never recovered.

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The category is only six years wide. The oldest people in it entered the category in 2013; none of them were of age in 2008. Your thesis only makes sense if you state that the Great Recession induced/exacerbated employer discrimination against this particular group of people.

It doesn’t say that at all. Different demographics are not employed equally across all sectors of the economy. In all likelihood, women of this age group were employed in precarious positions which crumbled during the recession. Due to their age, retraining might not have been a viable option, so they stayed home. None of this requires discrimination at all.

Exactly. What else started collapsing in that period?

A: Retail

This is more likely, especially when considering that women, like minorities, are likelier to be the first to be laid off as a recession gets underway, and the last to find full-time, full-skill employment after it ends.

Sounds like you're just speculating... anyone who understands the data knows this isn't true.

The Great Recession disproportionately hit men, particularly blue collar men. Just look up the Great Mancession or look at this chart https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/07/its-not...

I appreciate your thorough erasure of race from the subject.

https://www.sociologicalscience.com/articles-vol1-12-159/

https://iwpr.org/publications/black-hispanic-women-lag-recov...

https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/08/02/comparing-b...

I think a more recent source than in the middle of The Great Recession itself might be more illuminating.

Considering that the sources you cite and the source your debate openent cites disagree on the facts on the ground, y'all have some work to do if you ever want to understand eachother.

The source cited by your opponent claims that 80% of job losses in the recession were for men's jobs. If you analyze your sources, they disagree with this claim. Respond to that if you care to make any progress.

I did. I welcomed him to find a source from later.

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