Last month I wrote about men's (maybe) falling labor force participation rate in Singapore. In the post I wrote that this phenomena has be spotted in other industrialized countries years ago and there is already a fair amount of research on this issue.

In a recent article, the New York Times visits this issue ("Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job", 31 July 2006). The article is worth reading, although it is too anecdotal to my taste. There are some interesting pieces information you can find in the article, though:

About 13 percent of American men in this age group (between 30 and 55) are not working, up from 5 percent in the late 1960’s. The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today if the employment rate had remained where it was in the 1950’s and 60’s.

.......

This same trend is evident in other industrialized countries. In the European Union, 14 percent of men between 25 and 54 were not working last year, up from 7 percent in 1975, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Over the same period in Japan, the proportion of such men rose to 8 percent from 4 percent.

Compare that to:

Today, about 73 percent of (American) women between 30 and 54 have a job, compared with 45 percent in the mid-1960’s, according to an analysis of Census data by researchers at Queens College. Many women without jobs are raising children at home, while men who are out of a job tend to be doing neither family work nor paid work.

At this rate, someday I may have to teach not "why women are less likely to work than men" but "why men are less likely to work (and more likely to be idle even at home) than women."