Why Is the Labor Force Shrinking? Blame Young Men, Not the Economy

Submitted by Mastodon on Sat, 2012-10-27 00:20

Article here. Excerpt:

'Why are fewer men choosing to work? For that, we turn to the Census Bureau's 2012 Statistical Abstract. The participation rate is lower for single men than for married men, and marriage rates in the US have been falling for decades, so we'd expect a modest decline from that. Looking by age bucket, it's been pretty steady for single and married men for everyone over the age of 25 since the start of the Great Recession.

The recent decline we've seen has been primarily among young, single men. For single men age 16-19, participation fell by almost 9 points from 2006-2010. For single men age 20-24 it fell by almost 5 points. This could be for a variety of factors, from men deciding it's not worth bothering to apply for a job at the local grocery store, to men more focused on their education with unskilled work harder to find, to those living at home who decide there's no need for spending money when so much entertainment is free online.
...
And those not dropping out for education-related reasons? If it's just a bunch of 17-year olds who are content spending their time on Facebook instead of earning a few bucks bagging groceries, that's one thing. But if it's people who feel shut out of the workforce, that's something policymakers should address.

These are issues we're going to have to grapple with, because with robotic labor on the horizon, our desire and ability to compete with emerging market and silicon-based labor, especially for less-educated Americans, is likely to continue to fall.'

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Comments

It goes like this: When you see low workforce participation among women, it's a travesty and prima facie evidence of gender discrimination and/or other serious social dysfunction, in any case requiring significant gov't intervention. However when you see low male participation in the workforce, it's all their fault. See, easy enough.

But the article title seems not to jibe entirely with the content. In fact I doubt the author made up the title. Looks more like an editorial move to get people to read an otherwise fairly pedestrian article. 16-19 YO men are working less than before. Well, this could be to them paying more attention to the demands of today's standardized-test-obsessed school protocol than the wonderful opportunities they may have doing what?... Bagging groceries? Another reason is the recession/depression we're in. Many ppl in their early 20s (and even mid-20s) are now or will be living at home. A big factor for sure.

But what's really the concern here? It's this: Men working less means they're less *useful* to women. The whole reason the typical person cares is it means fewer men that can be used by women for their incomes. That's all. If the typical woman didn't want to use men for their incomes so much, an article like this'd never get written much less published.

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Submitted by Matt on Sun, 2012-10-28 01:06