Whoa, Did Men Quit Full-Time Jobs To Watch P*rn In The Basement?

You see stats like the above all the time, about middle-aged and older men fleeing the labor force. Here’s a new version of that same story. While it’s definitely true that some men have fled the labor force, you get into that link and you see this:

About 87 percent of men ages 35 to 44 were working as of October, down from 88.3 percent before the pandemic struck in 2020.

That’s not a huge drop, so I don’t think we can go and blame COVID immediately or anything.

A bit further down, there’s this:

Men have been withdrawing from the labor force for decades. In the years following World War II, more than 97 percent of men in their prime working years — defined by economists as ages 25 to 54 — were working or actively looking for work, according to federal data. But starting in the 1960s, that share began to fall, mirroring the decline in domestic manufacturing jobs.

Now, that’s a bigger drop, but it’s still not massive.

The generic reasons that everyone gives for this drop are:

• We outsourced manufacturing jobs
• We imprisoned a bunch of working-aged men
• We had two drug crises (cocaine/crack and opioids)
• Video games got better

The more progressive reasons we get for the drop are commonly:

• Mr. Moms happen more
• Shifting family dynamics
• Shifting life priorities

Here’s a few things I’d add:

• Women are actually fleeing the workforce a lot more , especially since COVID, so let’s remember that.
• There is a “crisis” of sorts around middle-aged men and their professional trajectory and education and potential as compared to previous generations, although many (87%) are still working in some capacity.
• There could be a shift underway about “what masculinity is” and “precise definitions of male success” away from work being a cornerstone of the American male existence. Capitalism is some dog-eat-dog shit. If you’re not at the very top, or close to it, your existence is basically just taking meaningless orders and then parroting them back down the chain as more meaningless orders. It can be tedious, and I think a lot of dudes got burnt on that during COVID (and in the 15 years before COVID) and wanted to just go create a food truck or something if they could figure it out.
• Dudes may have a natural inability to “pivot” career options as opposed to women. I’m just now pursuing some IT Support training, and it took me until 42 to figure out that maybe I should consider that. A woman probably would have gotten there mentally by 33.
• There are definitely shifting family dynamics, but most stats you run across say single-parent income is only 20% of families. In some neighborhoods that feels like 100% of families, but in some six-neighborhood zones, everyone has a job of some kind, and the kids might even have a job. I personally only know two families in my entire existence where the dad is the full-time stay-at-home, but … I know even 2 is an increase over 1959 America, so something is trending.

I want to believe some of this is about men investing well during the boom times of low interest rates and repeated stock market growth, but … I somehow doubt that’s it.

Takes?