Putting men back to work
This study was originally published in the Fall 2017 edition of National Affairs.
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Introduction
Perhaps the cruelest consequence of almost a century of unprecedented economic, social, and technological progress is that modern America has less and less use for men, particularly those with relatively low levels of education or skills. Men’s average wages, participation in the workforce, and rates of community activity have all stagnated or declined in recent years. Labor demand has fallen for many traditionally male-dominated fields like mining and heavy manufacturing, while demand for other heavily and traditionally male occupations — such as truck driving — might also soon drop because of technological advances. The result of these trends has been a mass of men who are unemployed, unengaged with civil society, uninvolved in family life, and, therefore, finding little meaning in their lives.
Men’s usefulness in the workforce has been diminishing for decades, and this downward trend has only accelerated in recent years. In 1948, the earliest data available, 86.7 percent of men were either working or looking for work. In January 2017, that rate had fallen to 69.3 percent. Although there have been some periods of stability (the percentage of men taking part in the workforce was flat between 1985 and 1990, for example), the post-World War II period in the United States has included no sustained upticks in the percentage of males over age 18 working or looking for work. Broadly speaking, labor-force participation for men declined continually amid the prosperity of the 1950s, during the buoyant economy of the 1960s as baby boomers started going to work, and during the tech boom of the 1990s. In the wake of the Great Recession, men’s workforce participation has declined from 73.4 percent in January 2008 to today’s rate of 68.9 percent, among the lowest since measurement began.
A January 2017 analysis by the Congressional Budget Office shows this is largely — though not entirely — a result of the baby-boom generation beginning to retire. On its own, that would not be terribly worrying. But it masks a more concerning trend: While women are working more, men are working less. The trend line is particularly bleak for low-skilled men and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Recent work by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that, among those born in poverty, women are far more likely than men to go to work at all.
Every major labor-force forecast suggests we should expect more of the same for the remainder of the 21st century. Women today constitute slightly less than 47 percent of all workers, and their share of the workforce continues to rise, even as their participation rate drops slightly, largely as a result of retirements and more women seeking higher education. Men may well remain a slight majority of the workforce for some time to come, but the world of work is increasingly a female one. And, troublingly, a large share of the men who have dropped out of the workforce are not picking up the slack in other areas of human activity, leaving them adrift.
To address the problem of male joblessness, policymakers, educators, employers, and concerned citizens should strongly consider public and private efforts to encourage more males to enter traditionally female-dominated jobs. Doing this will require rejiggering the policies that encouraged women to enter “male” fields to help attract men to “female” fields, as well as developing new policies that better serve the particular needs of men. These include state and local efforts at job training and career recruitment, along with national reforms to the criminal-justice system, the occupational-licensing regime, and health-care and workplace benefits.
By disengaging from work, family and communal involvement, men are depriving themselves of the sources of worth and purpose that are essential to a meaningful life, and the rest of society suffers along with them. Giving them a hand up and helping to restore their sense of purpose should be one of the nation’s highest priorities.
Read the full study here.
