In 2016, the American Enterprise Institute labour economist Nicholas Eberstadt published an important book called “Men Without Work.” Eberstadt’s book was basically about the evolution of the labour force participation rate among working-age males in the United States. In the years after the big war, close to 90 per cent of all American men were, at any given time, working or looking for work. At the time “Men Without Work” was published, the figure was more like 72 per cent. This week, with that number thrashing to keep its nose above 70 per cent, I learned that Eberstadt has published a “post-pandemic edition” of his volume with a new discussion of the problem.
