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Men Without Work

America's Invisible Crisis

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Men Without Work

By: Nicholas Eberstadt
Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
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About this listen

By one reading, things look pretty good for Americans today: The country is richer than ever before, and the unemployment rate is down by half since the Great Recession.

But a closer look shows that something is going seriously wrong. This is the collapse of work - especially among America's men. Political economist Nicholas Eberstadt shows that while "unemployment" has gone down, America's work rate is also lower today than a generation ago - and that the work rate for US men has been spiraling downward for half a century. Astonishingly, the work rate for American males aged 25-54 - or "men of prime working age" - was actually slightly lower in 2015 than it had been in 1940, before the war and at the tail end of the Great Depression.

Today, nearly one in six prime working-age men has no paid work at all - and nearly one in eight is out of the labor force entirely, neither working nor even looking for work. This new normal of "men without work", argues Eberstadt, is "America's invisible crisis".

So who are these men? How did they get there? What are they doing with their time? And what are the implications of this exit from work for American society?

©2016 Nicholas Eberstadt (P)2017 Tantor Business & Careers Economic Conditions Gender Studies Politics & Government United States Business Great Recession

Critic Reviews

“An unsettling portrait not just of male unemployment, but also of lives deeply alienated from civil society.” ( The New York Times)

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Profile Image for Siren

Great short book

Great analysis of the information surrounding the root causes of the working population problem. I enjoyed the passive listening. I found it is spoken and short enough that you get through it without issue.

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