Of course Doug is right, women's average wages have been rising relative to men's, primarily, as Michael pointed out, because of the improved 'mix' of women's jobs. But what I was pointing to was that the projection is for relatively good jobs -- the 'middle' if you want -- for women to disappear over the next decade. The disappearing middle is compatible with both rising, falling, or for that matter, stable average wages. What wehave also noticed, however, at least in Canada (and I think in the US though I don't have the figures handy) is that since the '90 recession, the participation rate of women has fallen. If the absolute number of "women's jobs" declines, can we really expect that women will continue to improve their incomes relative to men? Or will they just drop out of the labour force? Paul Phillips, University of Manitoba
