Men Without Work

America's Invisible Crisis

By: Nicholas Eberstadt

Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne

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

Critic reviews

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

Just a bit frustrated

I assume the authors didn’t want this book to be a political or social commentary, and I appreciate that. It’s sometimes frustrating when people use statistics selectively to advance an agenda. The book is extremely well researched and delivered with clear information. But while I don’t want to hear of your politics, I do need some real, or potential context. And I know full well that correlation is not causation. I’m 63, and by chapter 5, I’m long inundated with a tsunami of statistics, the overwhelming majority I can’t remember. But without more context—wars, political actions, globalization, tax policy, geopolitics, social trends etc, I can’t assign any meaning, and starts sounding like a data dump

Worth the time

Impressive statistical work. His argument is light in certain areas. Overall, it helped to understand the issue(s).

Omits today’s social environment

They go into the disability aspect and the criminal as well.
What they made no mention of, was the feminism aspect,
And the hostile work environment for men today.
Pound me to,and false accusations do not encourage men to enter
The work force.
This is a real issue of significance. Omitting it leaves the story incomplete!

Eye opening.

Unique points, back with statistics and It’s good to be Latino and the work force

Perspective

I enjoyed the perspective presented in this book. Discovered this listing to the Modern Wisdom Podcast. I fully enjoyed the book lots to think about and very well presented and backed up data.