There’s a version of American manhood that used to run on a simple script: leave home, get a job, build a life. Now, however—and rather increasingly—men are falling out of the workforce, just as women outnumber them for the third time in history. This, coupled with the lowest labor force participation rate in years, is causing huge concern for economists who are predicting real-world consequences for years to come.
Men are nearly twice as likely as women to be living with their parents, and a new study says it’s particularly harmful for noncollege-educated men, who are less likely to hold jobs compared to their college-educated counterparts.
As rents have surged across the country, more and more men are moving home, and once there, many stop working. In fact, one in six noncollege men (16%) now live with their parents, compared to 8% of college-educated men. A recent working paper from Gabrielle Penrose, a graduate student fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men, follows six decades of U.S. Census data and draws a direct line between rising housing costs and the decline of male labor force participation.
“There are very real economic forces that are limiting the options for noncollege-educated men in the United States,” Penrose told Fortune. “Some of what we’re seeing is simply rational responses to a system that’s pricing them out.”
