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)

Worth the time

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

Great information not suited to audio

Love the book. The information is important and well documented. But the audiobook version can have you listening to a list of numbers. I highly recommend the kindle or printed version. The audio, not so much.

A war for hearts and minds

Government subsidies during the pandemic, devastated the workplace and workforce. This inspired many companies to embrace automation much more quickly than planned. As an elder millennial and military veteran I saw my peers with college degrees accept work at a lower wage than expected, further displacing those “without”degrees. The “overqualified” replacing the “qualified” and acting as blockers. In a post, pandemic world, where nearly everything is being automated. Where would you have our young men and women find purpose and value?

Good information, but very academic

There is a lot of good information in this book. It's interesting, but you may get overwhelmed or find yourself tuning out when the text becomes page after page of Labor Bureau Statistics. This is really an academic journal paper published as a book.

too many stats for audiobook

i think info of the book was just too dry to listen too. listening endlessly to statics being repeatedly spoken makes it hard to stay focus on audiobook. probably reading actual book w graphs would be more engaging.

interesting topic

this is one of those things that people don't really talk about and it's amazing to see that it's actually happening. as an audiobook it's a little hard sometimes to follow along with all the percentages but it still is gripping and interesting in terms of getting your attention and holding it throughout the length of the narrative.

Great information…just a lot to chew on

Great information and definitely shines a light on the current economic situation…unfortunately it’s information overload. May have to read again bit by bit to truly gather the work as a hole. Otherwise very pertinent information even going into the future.

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.