Justin Fox, Columnist

Men Aren't Exactly Stampeding Back to Work

Four things could tell us why their labor-force participation remains near historic lows.

January 18, 2018 at 4:00 PM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

Well, of course that's more fun.
Photographer: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

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In December, the labor-force participation rate among prime-age men (in English: the percentage of men1516202527740 ages 25 through 54 who either had jobs or were actively looking for one) hit 89 percent for the first time in almost seven years. The fitful revival that began in 2014 or 2015 seems to be continuing.

Still, prime-age-male labor-force participation remains a lot lower than it was when the Great Recession began a decade ago. In fact, it's lower than it's been at any time on record apart from 2009 through 2015.