Thursday 20 January 2011

Where have these men gone?


UK male labour force participation is perplexing.

Back in the early 1970s, virtually all UK males aged between 16 and 59 were either working or registered as unemployed. Only 800,000 were economically inactive. Today, that number of inactive males is around 3.5 million.

What are these men doing? Are they all students? Surely not. They are not not registered unemployed, because if they were, they would be regarded as being economically active.

If anyone knows where these men have gone, then please let me know.

7 comments:

LEA said...

They are on the sick, methinks.

Budgie Inspace said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I spent quite a lot of time abroad, travelling and teaching English. Too busy working when young, my turn now:)

A David

Anonymous said...

Unemployment definition has been redrawn a lot since the 70's too. So the stats don't really mean anything. Im surprised such a number as "male labour force inactivity " even is quatified.

Jim said...

Early retirement. People who've made their stash by the age of 50 and are living off their investments.

Anonymous said...

They are the growing population of Buy-to-Let landlords...

aitortxu said...

Surely this is a "coding" issue; other explanations? people living abroad (approx 500,000 in Spain alone perhaps), students, disable people as well?....