America’s men aren’t working at the same rate they used to. Experts are still trying to figure out why.
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The share of prime working-age US men with a job has declined from about 96% in the 1950s to 86%.The effects of recessions, globalization, and disabilities can partially explain the decline.But there are also several other reasons men aren’t working like they used to.
America’s working-age men are employed at much lower rates than they used to be, and a combination of factors — from recessions to globalization to rising addiction rates — could be playing a role.
In the early 1950s, as many as 96% of prime working-age American men, who were between the ages of 25 and 54, had full-time or part-time jobs, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As of March, about 86% of working-age men were employed, and this cohort’s employment rate has lagged behind many developed countries in recent years, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found.
As such, many men are struggling to support themselves financially. And mental-health experts say the longer people are out of the workforce, the higher the chances they’ll experience mental-health challenges.
Here are a few factors that could explain what’s happening.
It could be about recessions
Since the 1950s, whenever the US economy fell into a recession, men’s employment rate tended to suffer a longer-lasting blow.
When the economy entered a recession in 1953, the share of prime-age men with jobs dropped from 96% to 92.8% and never fully recovered to the prerecession level, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.