Willing to bet that, as the author discusses, underestimating the size of informal employment/the informal economy is a large part of the issue. The transition

Willing to bet that, as the author discusses, underestimating the size of informal employment/the informal economy is a large part of the issue. The transition to a post-industrial economy makes it significantly harder to accurately estimate how many people are employed at any given time. Especially in the states, where people are identified and tracked through Social Security/OASDI, there's a short term benefit to working under the table. Edit: I'll take back part of my earlier comment. The Federal Reserve has a great visual breakdown of labor force participation by age. It's a little old, but it looks like the decline in labor force participation (ages 16-64) is largely attributable to schooling/university attendance: https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2015/08/the-composition-effect-in-the-labor-force-participation-rate/ https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2015/08/the-composition-effe....