Manufacturing is not for women

Since 2010, the starting point of the factory-sector recovery, women have lost 18,000 manufacturing jobs while men have gained more than 535,000 across the country, according to a new study by the National Women's Law Center (view PDF). In Illinois, Crain's analysis finds that over the past two decades, women's share of the labor force shrank or stagnated in every manufacturing sector except food, where they picked up a modest 2 percentage points of employment.