Posted on 06/16/2018 5:41:18 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
With unemployment at 3.8 percent, its lowest level in many years, the labor market seems healthy.
But that number hides a perplexing anomaly: The percentage of men who are neither working nor looking for work has risen substantially over the past several decades.
The issue, in economist’s jargon, is labor force participation. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys households, every adult is put into one of three categories. Those who have a job are employed. Those who are not working but are searching for a job are unemployed. Those who are neither working nor looking for work are counted as out of the labor force.
This last group is ignored when calculating the unemployment rate. The presumption is that if a person without a job isn’t looking for one, then he or she doesn’t want one, and the joblessness is not a problem. But is that really accurate?
The data show some striking changes over time. Among women, the share out of the labor force has fallen from 66 percent in 1950 to 43 percent today. That is not surprising in light of changing social norms and the greater career opportunities now open to women.
Men, however, exhibit the opposite long-term trend. In 1950, 14 percent of men were out of the labor force. Today, that figure stands at 31 percent.
Some of this change is easy to explain. People now spend more years in school, delaying their start of work. In addition, as life expectancy rises, people have longer retirements. A man retiring at age 65 in 1950 could expect to live another 13 years. Today, a man retiring at that age has an average retirement of 18 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
And why do you need to work all that hard if there is no good reason to start a family?
My nephew is turning 30 this year and he does not even date, claims it’s not worth the aggravation...he works only part time.
I work 50 hours a week, all on my feet, not a chair in the shop, other than the commode. But then again, Iget paid to go shooting twice a month. I’m 52, and have no trouble falling asleep at night, lol.
Lol, no women where I work. They couldn’t hack it.
Many urban residents work in Sales Of Interesting Chemicals
and Acquisition Of Valuable Items.
I’m just saying: When they tell you that your hope for advancement is zero because they want diversity, you stop trying to advance. Instead its a good time to get out.
When they say that everything you say at work or anything you say on line is in appropriate and can be cause for dismissal you start thinking about getting out.
When they start giving you training after training that says your the cause of all evil and everything you know to be true is not. Its time to leave.
When Ann Rand’s question about Where is John Gault sounds less like fiction and more like a reasonable choice. Its time to get out.
Not really. Gotta show up, though. If someone’s not working now, unless they’re legit disabled, it’s because they don’t want to, or make more money from benefits.
Men have always built the future for the sake of their descendants, so when they are disenfranchised from parenthood, they no longer have a reason to build the future and, correspondingly, civilization implodes.
Excellent points.
Every part of college is designed to favor women.
When my daughter started UGA, it was 65/35 female to male, and it seemed 75% of the females were Indian or chinese.
Every part of the entire education system is designed to favor females. It’s a joke. I have my son in the best school I can manage, with sex-separated classes after 5th grade, and the curriculum is absurd, all group projects and presentations and nonsense work.
Bingo....or should I say MGTOW.
We have 0.95 available workers for every open job. What do they want?
You are correct. I personally know of men who do the handyman
thing for cash and make a good living off of it. There are a lot of single woman homeowners out there and they are more then happy for have guys like that around.
I was just going to say according to articles in parenting magazines there are many stay at home fathers now. I have no idea if that is reality but surprised it was not mentioned.
That may explain part of it. I don’t know enough gays to know the trend- but I know of 2 male gay couples. In one couple one male has a very good job and his partner is an artist that does not seem to sell anything. The other couple one has a successful business and his partner is very much like the stereotype 1950s stay at home housewife.
Not dressed for work and not working? I worked an extremely irregular schedule at one point in my life, so you might have seen me or one of my colleagues during the day in a restaurant.
And yet we’re being told a college degree has become a waste of time. So which is it?
I've raised the question several times. We keep hearing about the unemployment rate dropping, yet the labor force participation rate is a tad lower than when Trump assumed office.
Probably. Given that and the HUGE number of boomers in that category, sure there are fewer men in the labor force.
My brothers struggle. One works two or three jobs at 45. He left a decent paying job because the boss was crooked. I worry about my younger teen nephew and what will be around when he graduates. Even tougher for guys as Christian (straight), white males.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.