(2006-07-31) Men Not Looking For Work

A growing number of men are giving up finding new work, yet dropping off the UnEmployment radar. About 13 percent of American men in this age group are not working, up from 5 percent in the late 1960's. The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today if the employment rate had remained where it was in the 1950's and 60's... Many of these men could find work if they had to, but with lower pay and fewer benefits than they once earned, and they have decided they prefer the alternative... Even as more men are dropping out of the work force, more women are entering it. This change has occurred partly because employment has shrunk in industries where men predominated, like manufacturing, while fields where women are far more common, like teaching, health care and retailing, have grown... Despite their great numbers, many of the men not working are missing from the nation's best-known statistic on unemployment. The jobless rate is now a low 4.6 percent, yet that number excludes most of the missing men, because they have stopped looking for work and are therefore not considered officially unemployed. That makes the UnEmployment rate a far less useful measure of the country's well-being than it once was.