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> but they nevertheless suggest that changes in family structure had a powerful and adverse impact on male work rates and labor-force participation rates... Th

> but they nevertheless suggest that changes in family structure had a powerful and adverse impact on male work rates and labor-force participation rates... This article seems to assume that changes in family structures are a cause of men not working. I see no mention that it could actually be an effect of that. Who's gonna want to marry (let alone have kids with) a man who is unemployed and isn't even looking for work?

tathougies 7y ago
No one marries middle aged men. Well... that's hyperbole. Historically, most men would marry in their 20s. This article says that middle aged men have given up working. Those some men could have been ambitious (or ambitious enough) 20 somethings who -- due to cultural changes -- never quite married and settled down. That is to say, it is not entirely clear that an apathy problem among old men is the cause of declining marriage rates, given that most people marry well before the age of the men in the article.
ameister14 7y ago
>Needless to say, the relationship between family structure and prime-age male labor-force participation is complex, with causation arrows pointing both ways. Yet on balance, the net effect of such changes appears to have been a withdrawal of male labor from the workforce — a "supply-side effect," and a major one.
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xyzzyz 7y ago
Who's gonna want to marry (let alone have kids with) a man who is unemployed and isn't even looking for work? This betrays your unfamiliarity with the segment of population under question. As it turns out, lots of women will readily have kids with those men. Along with the growth of single-man household, we observe growth of single never married women with children. See for example "Promises I Can Keep" (https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage/dp/0520241134 https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage...) and "Doing the Best I Can" (https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Best-Can-Fatherhood-Inner/dp/0520274067/ref=pd_cp_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=E0X6WP0P7S5V7EJ8C5Z9 https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Best-Can-Fatherhood-Inner/dp/05...) for some sociological view of realities about the lives of people this discussion revolves around.
remarkEon 7y ago
It's an endogenous effect.

tathougies 7y ago

No one marries middle aged men. Well... that's hyperbole. Historically, most men would marry in their 20s. This article says that middle aged men have given up working. Those some men could have been ambitious (or ambitious enough) 20 somethings who -- due to cultural changes -- never quite married and settled down. That is to say, it is not entirely clear that an apathy problem among old men is the cause of declining marriage rates, given that most people marry well before the age of the men in the article.

ameister14 7y ago

>Needless to say, the relationship between family structure and prime-age male labor-force participation is complex, with causation arrows pointing both ways. Yet on balance, the net effect of such changes appears to have been a withdrawal of male labor from the workforce — a "supply-side effect," and a major one.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

xyzzyz 7y ago

Who's gonna want to marry (let alone have kids with) a man who is unemployed and isn't even looking for work? This betrays your unfamiliarity with the segment of population under question. As it turns out, lots of women will readily have kids with those men. Along with the growth of single-man household, we observe growth of single never married women with children. See for example "Promises I Can Keep" (https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage/dp/0520241134 https://www.amazon.com/Promises-Can-Keep-Motherhood-Marriage...) and "Doing the Best I Can" (https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Best-Can-Fatherhood-Inner/dp/0520274067/ref=pd_cp_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=E0X6WP0P7S5V7EJ8C5Z9 https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Best-Can-Fatherhood-Inner/dp/05...) for some sociological view of realities about the lives of people this discussion revolves around.

remarkEon 7y ago

It's an endogenous effect.