Casey Mulligan, a University of Chicago professor blogging at Economix, says that women may become a majority of U.S. workers sometime this summer. The reason: Male-oriented occupations, such as construction, have borne the brunt of this recession. About three-quarters of jobs lost were held by men.

Mulligan notes that women held 49.6 percent of all jobs in the Labor Department’s February payroll survey. That’s up from 48.7 percent when the recession began in December 2007. If the recent pattern of job losses continue, Mulligan projects, women will hold a majority of jobs by August.

An eventual economic recovery will probably put men back in the majority, but, he adds:

In any case, this recession will have a lasting effect on the composition of employment.

The Labor Department’s separate household survey, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate, shows a similar pattern of largely male job losses. It, however, shows men remaining a clear majority of people who say they’re employed. In the household survey, the percentage of women workers rose to 47.4 percent in March from 46.4 percent in December 2007.

I’m curious about the difference between the two surveys. Are men more likely to say they’re employed when they’re not? Or are men more likely to be self-employed, a group that sometimes gets undercounted in the payroll survey?