Recession hitting men harder

Dead end or opportunity?

For some men, unemployment presents an opportunity to escape the rat race and find something more fulfilling. Sean Harvey, the founder of New York career consultancy Boerum Consulting, says more men are now coming to him looking for jobs that have a better work-life balance. Many, he says, feel that they had worked long, hard hours only to be unceremoniously laid off. Now they want positions that allow them to focus more on their homes, families and hobbies.

"Folks are starting to say, 'I have been giving so much to my job, and look how I have been treated,'" Harvey says. "Many are saying, 'I want to try entrepreneurial roles where I have more control or go to companies that are going to walk the talk when it comes to work-life balance.'"

Eriksen can relate. He is no longer looking for jobs in the financial industry. After a few months of reflecting on his time at Washington Mutual, Eriksen says he realized he never liked banking all that much. What drew him to the industry was its seeming stability and that it paid more than enough to support his wife and start a family. Now, his priorities have changed. That's partly due to Eriksen's split from his wife before he was laid off and partly due to his desire to have work he's passionate about.

"I'd like to have a complete career shift doing something almost entirely unrelated to finance," Eriksen says. "I was in the music industry and marketing before, so that is what I would like to get back into."

For some, the answer is a nonprofit

The desire to find personally meaningful work is leading many men to the nonprofit sector, Harvey says. It's also an area that's hiring. About 77,000 senior management positions were open at nonprofits in 2008, according to Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit advisory firm in Boston.

Bryan Munson is considering nonprofit jobs. In February, the New Jersey resident was laid off from a news and marketing position at Loud.com, an online social-networking company financed in part by Universal Music Group. At first, he was in shock. Munson, now 27, was in college during the recession of 2001. He was still operating under the assumption that long hours and hard work guaranteed job security, no matter what the economic circumstances.

"I was working from home, and they called me up and said, 'Hey, you don't have a job anymore. . . . We have to cut back,'" says Munson, who added that he had often worked 15-hour days. "I was thinking, 'How could they do that?'"

Breadwinner idea gets stale

Munson says he would like to continue to work with music, but he's open to anything that makes him feel good about his employment at the end of the day. He says he won't be picky for long. Though he doesn't feel embarrassed about getting laid off, he still feels a duty to take care of his live-in girlfriend, who has been unemployed since leaving a job to join him in New Jersey.

"I owe it to her to give her certain things," says Munson, adding that while his girlfriend is not pressuring him to support her, he feels responsible for providing financially. "We are not engaged now, but we will be one day, and I want to provide for her. The question is how?"

The length of unemployment will be key in determining just how much psychological damage this recession will inflict. Though many men remain upbeat about what they see as a temporary setback, that could change as weeks of unemployment stretch into months. That may be particularly true for men who still identify with being a breadwinner, author-sociologist Kimmel says.

Single guys have to pony up

Kyle Sullivan, a 32-year-old producer in New Jersey who recently lost his job at a small media-distribution company, says single men are under pressure to always be employed. Though opinions on unemployment may have relaxed in recent months, given rising rates, he thinks many women still assume that an unemployed guy must be lazy or otherwise unfit.

Sullivan began looking for a job within hours of hearing that his company was downsizing. To him, being unemployed for four months would be absolutely unacceptable, even though he has enough savings to continue to pay his bills.

"You want to be able to take a person out on a date or go to the movies and pay for it. You don't want the girl to have to pay for it," says Sullivan. "You don't want to be that guy."

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