By Sarah Damaske and Adrianne Frech
Men’s employment in the U.S. reached a 20-year high in 2023, with nearly 90% of men ages 25 to 54 in the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This supports the broad expectation – some might say stereotype – that full-time employment is the norm for American men.
Yet examining employment at a single point in time leaves out important information about whether people are able to maintain stable work. Our recent study of male baby boomers’ working lives – spanning more than two decades – tells a very different story.
In fact, men’s labor force participation has been steadily declining since the 1970s, and workers are experiencing greater labor market precarity – that is, shorter job spells, greater job insecurity and more long-term unemployment.
In our research as experts in the study of people’s employment over time, we have previously challenged the myth that most women “opt out” of the workforce, establishing that the majority of women work steadily and full time. That led us to suspect that the picture of men’s employment could also be incomplete.
To understand these long-term trends, we studied data from about 4,500 men collected over more than 25 years. We were looking for patterns in the amount of time these men spent employed, unemployed and looking for work, and out of the workforce and not looking for work.
We were surprised to find that only 41% of late baby boomer men – those who were between 14 and 21 years old in 1979 – worked steadily and continuously, which we defined as working almost every week of the year between ages 27 and 49. This is a cohort of men who were widely thought to have taken a “lockstep” approach to work: entering the labor market when they finished their schooling and remaining employed until retirement.
We found most men didn’t fit this stereotype. About a quarter didn’t reach steady employment until they were nearly 50. Another quarter either found themselves increasingly unemployed and out of work as they aged or able to find only intermittent work. Finally, a smaller group of men left the labor market entirely – some leaving paid work at relatively young ages, while others leaving as they reached middle age.
Problems with precarity
We don’t know exactly why these men followed such a wide range of work patterns during what economists call their “prime earning years.” But we think increasing labor market precarity – which researchers say is driven in large part by increases in layoffs and decreases in unionization – played a big role.
For example, we found that men who worked as “operators, fabricators and laborers” or in “precision production, craft and repairs” were at greater risk of unemployment. These are jobs that provided our own grandfathers with good, well-paying work, but they are also jobs that have become increasingly rare since the 1970s.
We also found that men were at greater risk if they lived in counties with a higher unemployment rate or in states with more unionized jobs when they first entered the labor market. That latter point likely put them at greater risk of job loss when those jobs went overseas in the 1980s and 1990s.
Men who experienced unemployment, more job turnover before the age of 25 or transportation barriers to finding a good job also followed less steady work patterns, suggesting that they may have been forced to take “bad jobs” that provided fewer opportunities to move up the ladder or to earn a living wage.
Our findings paint a troubling portrait of employment in America. If this kind of unsteady employment characterizes the work patterns of the baby-boom generation, what awaits those of us who follow them? Is there anything we can do about it?
Ideas for improvement
The good news is there are solutions for workers, employers and the federal government. Our research shows that a college degree could protect men from the risk of unemployment or time out of work. The government can support this goal by making college more affordable for workers, as the current administration has proposed doing.
For employers, our findings suggest that making work less precarious – in other words, making it more stable, with better pay and more schedule control – would be a win-win proposition. Research suggests that employers consistently underestimate the costs of losing employees. Given how hard it’s been for employers to stay fully staffed – especially in retail and service work – making jobs more appealing to workers could pay off in terms of retention.
Walmart, for instance, has increased pay and schedule control for its workers. Such moves have been shown to benefit both the employers, through the reduction in employee turnover costs, and the employees, through improved work conditions and work benefits.
The government could also implement policy changes, such as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, to promote workers’ right to unionization, since unionization is consistently linked to higher wages and lower levels of inequality.
We don’t think the U.S. needs the jobs that our grandfathers held to return; instead, it needs to turn today’s available jobs into good jobs. The recent National Labor Relations Board “joint employer” ruling, for example, should do this by making it easier for workers at national chains to unionize across franchises, which could improve the working conditions of millions of people in the service industry.
Finally, government can take action to make unemployment a less miserable experience. Our findings, both here and elsewhere, suggest that unemployment does considerable harm to workers’ careers and health. Reforming the current unemployment insurance system by expanding eligibility and creating progressive wage replacement rates may make it easier for workers to find jobs that better fit their skill set, which our research suggests could help them return to stable employment.
Our findings are the canary in a coal mine. They suggest that for future generations, steady employment may be a thing of the past. But the good news is that we can heed the warning and take steps to give everyone access to better jobs and more stable employment.
Sarah Damaske is Professor of Sociology and Labor and Employment Relations at Penn State. Adrianne Frech is Associate Professor of Population Health at Ohio University.
dave says
Reforming the current unemployment insurance, isn’t that what has caused the job market issues we have today, where the state and fed govts during the pandemic gave free money to people and most of these people did not return to their ONCE FULL TIME jobs, which caused businesses to close and also a reduced workforce in established businesses. . I hate to say it but a lot of people, got used to doing nothing.
JimboXYZ says
Corporations have always been playing a low ball game with labor. The strategy is to create a situation where labor is skilled, yet feeling fortunate to have a job. The “prove yourself” to the next cast of management for the same set of problems in a different location & 4 walls. In some cases it’s a knowledge transfer, others just a project by project need to have a competent & skilled labor force. They don’t have to promote, offer benefits at the same level. Labor isn’t at any employer long enough to qualify for a pension of any material payout. Seasonal employment & managing the mix of FT, Seasonal, Project & Temporary labor. Take Retail, for decades anyone’s been alive, it’s Thanksgiving week to the week after New Year’s Day for Retail Christmas. Employers it’s their job to get labor for as low a cost as possible, same goes for labor to get a salary/hourly at the best rates.
Worked for several Directors that were like that, cheap on everyone but themselves. Some are never to work on time, but expected staff to be available before (early) & after their shift (late). Only so much of that lopsided employment situation anyone could stand. Doesn’t matter where you go same problems, different faces/names/personalities, different 4 walls. Always the same challenges to figure out who was the tighter knit clique of nepotism & cronyism.
It’s K-12 only for a career, not school. That’s why children need to get that education & learn in a competitive world instead of being confused about their gender or dwelling on race & the history of that. We all get one life to accomplish goals, because the reality is you’re born, live a day to day, then die. Nobody cares about before & after anyone’s life really, the “during” is how well one lives their best life. Everything accumulated is either transferred as an inheritance, otherwise “back in the box” it goes to be used by the next for that items useful life. The “Finiteness” of life. If there’s one lesson in life anyone can pass on, “Don’t fall in love with anything that doesn’t love you back.”
Pogo says
@FlaglerLive
After reading the comments from the MAGA regulars, I’m inspired to research the suicide rate of bartenders and social media moderators.
FWIW, this topic has been a regular guest performer, somewhere, every year for the last forty years. And probably more.
Laurel says
Jimbo: I agree with 90% of what you wrote, but you could have left the gender part out. Instead, add how corporate big wigs convinced the workers that they could manage their own money better and replaced pensions with precarious 401Ks.
FlaglerLive says
Not necessarily suicide, but it is a fact that both principal moderators of this site were diagnosed with cancer after a few years of this. One of them refused to continue moderating, for understandable reasons.
Pogo says
@Another comment vanishes
Well that’s fine. But it’s a shame that cracker barrel sages, incoherent Glen Beck impersonators, et al., are treated like holy writ.
In the event this is posted, I believe anyone actually concerned with the actual topic may actually benefit by availing themselves of the following:
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=unskilled+labor+disappearing
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=corporate+raider
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=hedge+fund
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=looting+defined+pension
dave says
I’m just glad I worked in a time where corporations wanted long term employees that wanted to grow with the corporation. I also retired after 37 1/2 with a nice pension. Today, most people have no pensions, and most don’t stay in a job long enough to even build up seniority, they move on looking for that NEXT great job and like you noted, the employee has to figure out if they want to invest or not in their future.
Endless Dark Money says
lol Florida republicons sabotaged the unemployment program so bad that now it wont even pay half of a rent anywhere in the state so forget food, or insurance or utilities. only 11% of eligible people even apply cause its so bad(worst in nation). Rick Scott even boasted about kicking hundreds of thousands off the program. The programs used are meant to not work. So yeah it needs reform of getting rid of r’s and developing something that actually helps people if they are laid off or between jobs so they dont become criminalized homeless thanks again to the r-cons. Seems like late stage capitalism to me where the corpos are just tryng to get every last penny before their sham ends and everything hits the fan. Faster than expected like 1.5 degrees we were 27 years early lol.
BIG Neighbor says
As someone who knows what it’s like to see:
I’d like to see a new approach to corporate responsibility with ownership that brings salient wellness and work-life balances to the workforces, taking ownership of the damage done by complacency. It’s funny about distributed alliances….it’s hard to pin-point who owns what. Don’t get me wrong, we are blessed, but we are far from perfection.
Laurel says
I have no clue as to why bartenders would be susceptible to suicide or cancer. I was a bartender, and the male bartenders I worked with, two were major assholes, and one was the best I ever saw. So, what am I missing? BTW, what does “FWIW” stand for?