Male prime-age nonworkers: evidence from the NLSY97

The labor force participation rate of prime-age men (ages 25 to 54) has been mostly falling since the late 1960s, with steeper declines during recessionary periods. This article uses longitudinal data to examine whether men’s prior trajectories of schooling, work, family, neighborhood, health, incarceration, and living situations are associated with nonwork status. It also investigates whether nonwork status is a transitory state and whether nonworkers are supported by family members. The data in this article are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), which provides detailed histories of respondents’ lives across multiple domains. When the 2015–16 NLSY97 interviews were conducted, about 8.5 percent of men, who, at the time, ranged in age from 30 to 36 years, had not worked in the prior year. More than two-thirds (70.0 percent) of these men had never married, nearly a third (30.6 percent) lived in a household with a parent, and 16.3 percent were incarcerated at the time of the interview.