Posted on 03/14/2018 10:39:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
Writing last week about the opioid crisis, I suggested that, as we consider policy options for dealing with the problem, we consider that at least some part of it may reflect a spiritual, moral crisis in the country.
I noted that casualties from opioids show that they are disproportionately men, disproportionately divorced or never married, and disproportionately individuals with no more than a high school education.
We can look beyond the opioid crisis and see a broad, disturbing picture pointing to a social and spiritual crisis among our young men.
In 2016, Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., published a book called "America's Invisible Crisis: Men Without Work."
He discusses what he calls a "flight from work" in which droves of our male population have disappeared from the work force.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics just issued its new jobs report, and the results were heartening. Data shows a return to growth in jobs in the American economy and return to the work force of many who dropped out during the years following the recent recession.
The labor force participation rate of prime-age working men ages 25-54, that is, the percentage working or actively seeking work, was 89.3 percent in February 2018.
Given that this rate was down to 88.4 late in 2011, we see progress here -- good news.
However, Eberstadt points out that average labor force participation rate of these prime-age working men in 1965 was 96.6 percent.
"Expressed another way," says Eberstadt, "the proportion of economically inactive American men of prime working age leapt from 3.4 percent in 1965 to 11.8 percent in 2015, and remains at 11.5 percent today."
By my own calculations, almost 5 million prime-age working men have disappeared from the work force.
The U.S. population of men 25-54 today is 64.5 million. If their work force participation today was 96.6 percent, as it was in 1965, 62.3 million would be working or actively seeking work. But today's reported rate of 89.3 percent indicates that there are now 57.6 million prime-age men working or actively looking for work -- 4.7 million less than there would have been at the 1965 rate.
How are these millions of men who have dropped out of the work force sustaining themselves?
According to Eberstadt, they get help from friends, family, and, of course, government.
Using Census Bureau data, Eberstadt reports "as of 2013, over three-fifths of prime-age men not in the labor force lived in homes that relied on at least one means-tested program for income. Some 41 percent of these men lived on food stamps, while just over half reported using Medicaid, a noncash benefit program."
Additional Census Bureau data, according to Eberstadt, shows that "in 2013, some 57 percent of prime-age unworking men were getting benefits from at least one government-disability program."
What is the profile of these prime-age unworking men?
They most likely have no more than a high school diploma, are not married, have no children or are not living with children they may have, are born in the USA and are black.
Although overall the workforce participation rate for black men is lower than that of white men, the cultural dynamics at play are more fundamental driving factors of what's going on than race.
For instance, Eberstatdt points out that "labor-force participation rates for white men today are lower than they were for black men in 1965."
Also, the labor-force participation rates for never-married white men are consistently lower, by about 3 percentage points, than for married black men.
We are paying a large social price for the widespread collapse of Christian values -- in particular, the values of marriage and family. And our young men may be disproportionately bearing the brunt of this.
Your describing the childhood of most American boys when Christianity was the only worldview for the “Justice” system—based on Common Law, the Magna Carta, etc. and when Classical Christian curricula was all that was allowed in any school. With the communist John Dewey, they started in with the social engineering of the minds of children-—to condition them to flip 2000 years of ethics to Satanism (baby-killing “rights”, sodomy “rights” and socialism (slavery)).
The Wright Brothers went to neighbors to help with so many things to make a few dollars to buy kite materials or bike parts. They never even graduated from high school and neither did Edison. Children were only trapped for four years and for only a few hours a day—so they could learn agency and how to think for themselves (be creative).
Free play and free association has been destroyed in our System of Mass indoctrination which destroys the neurological normal pathways of the brain. The children are being programmed like “bots” so they have NO ABILITY to think for themselves—which has to be practiced and habituated. TV and screens literally create addicts and artificial, unnatural emotions in children and make real life “boring”. Dopamine hits are part of the design in video games, etc., to create addicts and future addicts—lazy, antihuman people.
The Pavlovian/Skinner conditioning has been on steroids now in America for one whole generation!!! with the help of the sodomites in Hollywood (the ones raping all the boys) and the corporations dumping soy and contaminating our water with fluoride and birth control hormones which is destroying literally sperm production in our boys and WORSE!!!!
“”Expressed another way,” says Eberstadt, “the proportion of economically inactive American men of prime working age leapt from 3.4 percent in 1965 to 11.8 percent in 2015, and remains at 11.5 percent today.”
Are they really economically inactive, or they just don’t want to say how they make money? There are many ways, legal and illegal, of making money without having an official job.
Godless schools.
No fault divorce.
Godless families.
Feminism.
Godless TV.
Liberal teachers.
PC.
Fatherless families.
Queering of America.
Video games.
Social media.
Blue ribbons for showing up.
They’re afraid to kiss girls.
See the kissing scandal on American Idol.
The best description I have seen in years, and it isn’t just young men....young women are just as indoctrinated by the feminist movement/planned parenthood. SAD!
There is a lot of ‘cultural’ issues that go into this situation.
*The welfare system as a whole has much to do with it. I am not against helping a needy person or even a disabled person who truly can’t work. But, anyone able bodied or this day in age mentally able to can remote work from home. If one is able to do something, then one should put that skill to work and contribute to society.
*The time frame used for the comparison reflects back to a time when most women didn’t work(homemakers), did women’s work(secretary, receptionist, retail) and very, very few rose in the ranks of management. Those management ranks were filled by ambitious men who had whole families to look after.
*The destruction of the nuclear family. I am old enough to recall hearing that phrase a lot in the 70’s and 80’s. Many folks were worried about the destruction of the nuclear family...and it seems they were right. Take away a man’s reason to work...impress a mate/female...he doesn’t work and seeks out his own destruction within the culture (pussification as someone upthread mentioned).
There was a time when the family was the center of everyone’s world. Now, now? We’re not going back anytime real soon and in fact we won’t go back ever. Changes will have to be made, but it won’t be going back to a wife, barefoot and babies. But we must address the psychology of men’s roles in the world and start finding ways to make them thrive again in the modern age.
Maybe the war on men is winning? Men with no purpose get in trouble quickly. The media, leftists women, LQTSDGFADSGERGERGTF, Hollywood and others with influence hate men in general and white men in particular. It may be having the desired effect.
Boys (men in training) are being emasculated by the public education system and TV.
Homeschool them and bring up real men, not sissified wusses.
I agree 100%! I would also add welfare and the government making it easy in poverty, as well.
I agree 100%! I would also add welfare and the government making it easy in poverty, as well.
If you know the deck is stacked against you, what do you do? Refuse to play and that's exactly what's happening. FReminists can stomp and shriek all they want but a thoroughly anti-male scenario is what we now have, and they like that, apparently.
Women are competing for many of the same jobs as men, and women have the advantage of Big Government pushing employers to preferentially hire them.
Some men are inevitably going to lose out in that arrangement.
How old are you? Do those jobs still work that way? How many thousands of lawsuits and millions of illegals have been dropped in and around that industry in the intervening years? You appear to be living decades in the past with your particular prescription.
Yup
It’s harder for men and there’s much less incentive by design. Although hard work still does count for a lot.
Yep. As Cicero stated when unjust laws promote vice or unequal “laws’ then it will collapse culture because people are easy to corrupt.
No-fault divorce made the contract of marriage worthless. It is the same thing that Lenin did to destroy the Natural family in Russia—and it worked. Even Stalin had to firm up the marriage contract again, because of all the abandoned children, who were just feral and not even good for “useful idiots” and slaves for the state.
Baba O'Riley
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