the disparity has grown since the 1980's-- shockingly so.
I've been made aware of this also, and have wondered whether it was due to the shrinking of the economy over the past decade or so... analogous to the aftermath of the "
Rosie the Riveter" campaign of the 1940's, when women were
temporarily called to work in factories when men going off to war created a labor shortage... and then were expected to remove themselves from the labor force when the economy no longer needed the "excess" human capital.
