US Faces Decline in Male Workforce Participation
Workplace participation among men in their working years (ages 25-54) has been slowly declining in the US over time. The highest percentage of prime age working men was 97.8% in 1958, the trend has fluctuated over the years and as of March 2024, is 89.2% .
Bipartisanpolicy.org sums up this trend in a recent article – illustrating that the number of jobs added to the labor market is an insufficient benchmark for whether or not we have a good economy:
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) January 2024 jobs report showed a red-hot labor market, with 353,000 jobs added to the U.S. economy and the unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7%. Yet this strength masks a concerning long-term trend dating back to the 1950s — declining men’s labor force participation.”
The 2008 recession and the onset of the pandemic in 2020 are both large factors that have contributed to dramatic dips in workforce participation over time.
A BPC-Artemis survey defined prime age adults as 20-54 and documented the reasons for why more men are either out of the labor force (not looking for work) or unemployed but seeking work. Reasons cited for being out of work are summed up in the following graph:
Health is the largest obstacle that contributes to men being out of the workforce. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of men in this group cite physical or mental health as the reason for not being in the labor force. Fifty-five percent (55%) of men surveyed cited a disability, or serious illness. Two percent (2%) of these men cited a mental, emotional, or behavioral health reason.
Lack of necessary skills is another large obstacle that prevents some men from participating in the workforce. Forty-seven percent (47%) of prime age men cite lack of education, obsolete skills or a poor work history. A Congressional Research Service report indicated “the decline was most pronounced among men without college degrees.”
Overall, fewer young men are in college. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, female enrollment at HBCUs has been higher than male enrollment for over forty years and “Of all degrees conferred by HBCUs to Black students, more than two-thirds were conferred to female students.”
Additional studies cite opioid abuse and increases in Social Security’s disability programs as additional reasons for the decline in men being out of the workforce.
Policies for reskilling displaced workers and increasing workforce development systems are essential to improving these numbers.