Since las t Friday’s jobs report and the flood of misdirection coming out of Washington, I’ve been trolling the BLS numbers.
Here are a couple that caught my eye …
Since 1950, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) among adult males has fallen from almost 90% to below 70% today.
Wow. Almost 1 of 5 men have opted out.
= = = = =
During the same period – 1950 to today – adult women’s LFPR has increased from about 33% to about 60%.
Best hypotheses I can conjure are that
(1) working women has freed some men to stay-at-me to either be Mr. Mom ,,, or just slack off
(2) more capable women have squeezed men out of jobs?
Any alternative explanations out there?
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April 10, 2013 at 9:18 am |
In 1973, 24% of 18-24-year-olds were enrolled in college. By 2008, that had risen 39.8%. That age group’s LFPR has also fallen, from 57.9 to 50.4% during the same period. I suspect this has had an impact on the overall labor force numbers.