A High-Water Mark for Women, in Retrospect

During the worst part of the credit crisis, women had more paid jobs than men for the first time, the Labor Department now says.

The new numbers show that in June 2009, 65,499,000 jobs in the United States were held by women â€" 50.02 percent of the total â€" while 65,455,000 were held by men.

The percentage of jobs held by women peaked at 50.1 percent in December of that year, and then began to decline as more men found work. By last month, the share for women was down to 49.4 percent.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics. Note: Chart is not zero-based.

The new calculations resulted from a conclusion that six states â€" California, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, and Washington - had improperly not been counting some workers in the reports to the government based on unemployment insurance premiums paid.

In general, private household employment is not counted in the establishment survey, with those people treated as independent contractors instead.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says those who provide services to the elderly and disabled should have been counted in the survey, but were not in the six states, while they were in other states.

Under the old numbers, the share of jobs held by women had peaked in October 2009 at 49.99 percent, reflecting a difference of only 24,000 jobs between men and women.

The changes relate to the establishment survey, which is used to calculate the total number of jobs added or subtracted from the economy each month.

The household survey, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, has always included the self-employed as working, so it is not affected.

The household survey has always shown more men than women as working. The high point for female share in that survey came at 47.5 percent in January 2010. It was at 46.9 percent last month.

Another difference in the two surveys is that the establishment survey counts jobs, and a person with two jobs could be counted twice. If many of those women counted had multiple jobs, it is possible that the American workforce never had more women than men.