Amidst widespread talk of income inequality and the rise in working women, many American men have retreated from the labor force steadily since 1965. Nicholas Eberstadt, AEI’s Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, noticed this trend in 2014 and began work on a project tracking men who lie outside the reach of traditional measures of unemployment since they are not working or looking for work. That project culminated in Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis.

In 2022, Eberstadt released a Post-Pandemic Edition of Men Without Work, which forms the backbone of today’s discussion. We discuss who the men without work are, how they spend their time, and how to convince society that work as an institution is a worthy investment of time.

Mentioned in the Episode

Harvard University

Roger Revelle – AAAS

American Enterprise Institute

Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis

Men Without Work: Post-Pandemic Edition

NILF (Not in Labor Force) Rate

BLS Definition of Employed - 1 hour per week

US Marriage Rates

US Family Structure 1965 to now

US Religiosity 1965 to now

1996 Welfare Reform

Yuval Levin on formative institutions

Decline of the Summer Job

Homo Economicus