Wednesday, February 26th, 2020
Author: Nicholas Eberstadt
Source: National Affairs
Publication Date: Winter issue No. 42 Winter 2020 (used 26 February 2020)
Link: Education and Men without Work
Stephan:
Nicholas Eberstadt, Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute" would normally be described as a conservative. But not of the Trumpian kind. He uses social outcome data, as I do, to assess trends, and to discern what works from what does not, on the basis of facts.
I must point out though that I think his interpretation of the role of government benefit programs is wacko. Like all conservatives, Eberstadt does not yet understand why policies that support well being are the way out of the current economic and social breakdown resulting from the implementation of conservative policies.
But, as I have said many times, I care about data not the usual partisan philosophies, and that is why I am publishing this research. Eberstadt's data is correct. It is his interpretation with which I do not agree. To me, it is very simple. Wellbeing must be the first priority in any policy. Does this foster wellbeing at every level? is the question that should be asked.
Finally, although this essay does not make the linkage I see men without work as also related to the Incel Trend, and the end of the Abrahamic values of male dominance, and the creation of a gender and racially neutral society.
America today is in the grip of a gradually building crisis that, despite its manifest importance, somehow managed to remain more or less invisible for decades — at least, until the political earthquake of 2016. That crisis is the collapse of work for adult men, and the retreat from the world of work of growing numbers of men of conventional working age. (emphasis added)
According to the latest monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “work rates” for American men in October 2019 stood very close to their 1939 levels, as reported in the 1940 U.S. Census. Despite some improvement since the end of the Great Recession, Great Depression-style work rates are still characteristic today for the American male, both for those of “prime working age” (defined as ages 25 to 54) and for the broader 20 to 64 group.
Unlike the Great Depression, however, today’s work crisis is not an unemployment crisis. Only a tiny fraction of workless American men nowadays are actually looking for employment. Instead we have witnessed a mass exodus of men from the workforce altogether. At this writing, nearly 7 million civilian non-institutionalized men between the ages of 25 […]
I believe this data and the data of reduced children is connected to the destruction of the family and the social contract between men and women. Today, men are not interested in participating in the massive transfer of wealth from men to women. This was accepted years ago because men received benefits in exchange. This is not the case today and a lot of men are opting-out.