More work?
As previously noted, men’s labor force participation has been declining since 1949. The NYTimes had a nice article this week about the growing population of prime working age men who are out of the labor force.
Some countries — the United Kingdom and New Zealand are the ones I know about — have explicit goals of increasing labor force participation. The US has such a goal for single mothers — welfare recipients — but isn’t willing to talk about it for a broader population.
The argument in favor of promoting increased labor force participation as a public policy goal are:
- promotes economic growth, especially in countries with low population growth;
- reduces poverty, as wages are the primary source of income for most people;
- brings socially isolated groups into the mainstream.
The first two of these are pretty self-evident. The third is basically a version of what Bill Clinton argued during welfare reform, that work gives "meaning to your life and shape to your days." One of the authors of the Times article is Louis Uchitelle, who wrote The Disposable American. He makes a convincing case that, even when laid-off workers are doing ok financially, there’s a huge emotional toll to being told that society doesn’t value your skills, that you have nothing to contribute. There’s also an argument to be made that expanding work makes it more politically feasible to provide income support when earnings aren’t enough.
But, as I wrote in response to Hirshman last fall, I strongly believe that there are ways to contribute to society that don’t involve getting a pay check. So, while labor force participation may be a easily measured metric, it’s important to remember that it’s not the real goal.
August 4th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
Hear, hear! Hirshman drives me crazy since she purports to be a feminist and yet encourages the patriarchal assumption that is prevalent throughout our culture that staying at home in order to care for your kids has no inherent value–to society or to the women’s movement. She’s the antithesis of feminism, IMO.
August 8th, 2006 at 9:57 am
Yes, I think it’s a shame that volunteer work, probably because it has long been the domain available women, isn’t considered “real” work. Certainly, volunteering in the community would be a great way to decrease social isolation and ease the emotional toll of not working (not to mention the value for the community), if there wasn’t a stigma attached to volunteering when you could be “working” instead.