At least, that's what I would ask David Brooks, who managed to write an entire column on unemployment among adult men without mentioning the economic collapse of 2008. His explanation for the 20 percent of American men (between the ages of 25 and 54) who don't work? It's structural (oh, and they're lazy too):
Part of the problem has to do with human capital. More American men lack the emotional and professional skills they would need to contribute. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 35 percent of those without a high school diploma are out of the labor force, compared with less than 10 percent of those with a college degree.
Part of the problem has to do with structural changes in the economy. Sectors like government, health care and leisure have been growing, generating jobs for college grads. Sectors like manufacturing, agriculture and energy have been getting more productive, but they have not been generating more jobs. Instead, companies are using machines or foreign workers.
The result is this: There are probably more idle men now than at any time since the Great Depression, and this time the problem is mostly structural, not cyclical.
It's entirely possible that unemployment among men is "mostly structural," but proving that requires more than a quick point about education and a large generalization about economic change. What's more, it requires Brooks to actually contend with, or even acknowledge, the Great Recession, which destroyed millions of jobs and plunged aggregate demand into a downward spiral.
As it stands, the evidence points to a cyclical explanation for most of the current joblessness. Since 2007, unemployment has more than doubled for nearly all age and education groups, and this includes college students; from December 2007 to September 2010, unemployment increased by 182 percent among young college graduates (between the ages of 20 and 24), 130 percent among their peers in the next age bracket (25 to 34). As Mike Konczal notes, "This should hit against a structural unemployment story, as college educated people have the ‘freshest’ skills and incredibly high mobility."
As an additional data point, here (taken from Konczal) is the ratio of state unemployment rates, taken by dividing the November 2010 rate by the November 2007 rate:
If male unemployment were "mostly structural," we'd see normal levels of unemployment in states like Illinois, which were largely unaffected by the housing bubble, and massive levels of unemployment in states like Nevada and Florida, which were the epicenter of the housing bubble. Instead, most states have seen a doubling in their unemployment rate, which suggests a cyclical explanation.
Again, it's amazing that Brooks could write an entire column on male unemployment without mentioning the Great Recession. He offers a few suggestions for alleviating the problem, but even still, this is a glaring omission; it's as if he's less concerned with helping the unemployed and more interested in finding a way to avoid large, meaningful action.
