Over the last half century, US wage growth stagnated, wage inequality rose, and the labor-force participation rate of prime-age men steadily declined. In this article, we examine these worrying labor market trends, focusing on outcomes for males without a college education. Though wages and participation have fallen in tandem for this population, we argue that the canonical neoclassical framework, which postulates a labor demand curve shifting inward across a stable labor supply curve, does not reasonably explain the data. Alternatives we discuss include adjustment frictions associated with labor demand shocks and effects of the changing marriage market—that is, the fact that fewer less-educated men are forming their own stable families—on male labor supply incentives. In the synthesis that emerges, the phenomenon of declining prime-age male labor-force participation is not coherently explained by a series of causal factors acting separately. A more reasonable interpretation, we argue, involves complex feedbacks between labor demand, family structure, and other factors that have disproportionately affected less-educated men.

中文翻译：

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受教育程度较低的男性劳动力市场前景下降

过去半个世纪以来，美国工资增长停滞，工资不平等加剧，壮年男性劳动力参与率稳步下降。在本文中，我们研究了这些令人担忧的劳动力市场趋势，重点关注没有受过大学教育的男性的结果。尽管这一人群的工资和参与率同时下降，但我们认为，假设劳动力需求曲线在稳定的劳动力供应曲线上向内移动的规范新古典主义框架并不能合理地解释数据。我们讨论的替代方案包括与劳动力需求冲击相关的调整摩擦以及不断变化的婚姻市场的影响——也就是说，受教育程度较低的男性正在组建自己的稳定家庭这一事实——对男性劳动力供应激励的影响。在出现的综合中，壮年男性劳动力参与率下降的现象并不能用一系列单独作用的因果因素来连贯地解释。我们认为，更合理的解释涉及劳动力需求、家庭结构和其他对受教育程度较低的男性产生不成比例影响的因素之间的复杂反馈。