Excerpt
Excerpt
The Rise of In-and-Outs: Declining Labor Force Participation of Prime Age Men. John Coglianese, November 15, 2017, Paper, "This paper documents that much of the decline in labor force participation of U.S. prime age men comes from “in-and-outs”—who I define as men who temporarily leave the labor force. Individuals moving in and out of the labor force have been an understudied margin of labor supply but account for roughly one third of the decline in participation between 1977 and 2015. Most in-and-outs take an occasional short break in between jobs but are otherwise attached to the labor force. Examining explanations for the rise of in-and-outs, I find that half of the rise has come from married or cohabiting men, and I show that this portion of the increase can be explained by a wealth effect from their partners’ growing earnings, using variation in the growth of female wages across demographic groups." Link