Today's Straits Times carried an article about prime-aged (25-to-55-year-old) men's falling labor force participation rate (LFPR) in Singapore ("More men let wives bring home the bacon"). It is an interesting piece. My comment on the falling LFPR of men is quoted in the article.

Regarding my comment quoted in the article, I would like to clarify that they are actually taken out of much longer comment I gave. What I said in an email was

"I'd like to point out that the drops [of men's LFPR] are very slight, usually less than 1% point. It may be nothing.  If this is something real, however, the reason for the drop may lie in the substantial increase of LFPR of women in the same period. As I said earlier, as the economy has improved, more women now have jobs and are working, and quite likely for the better pay. It is possible that a small percentage of men have dropped out of labor force as the spouse or other other family members earn more money. This is called the "income effect"--people want to enjoy leisure rather than work, as their non-labor income increases"

I am afraid that we may be again trying to read too much into small fluctuations (please see my other entry).

In the article, the reporter writes,

Research on the subject hardly exists, compared to the numerous studies done on why more women are working. Also, research on male workers tends to focus on why more older men aged above 55 are working.

It is true that there are far less research on men's LFPR than on women's. However, still a sizeable body of research on the subject actually exists, as the falling trend of LFPR among men has been spotted in the US quite some time ago. In 1980 Donald Parsons published a paper about it (“The Decline in Male Labor Force Participation,” Journal of Political Economy, vol. 88, no. 1, pp. 117-134). He attributes it to generous disability and welfare benefits. His view has been challenged or supported by numerous research, including my own PhD dissertation, since.