Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images
- Higher-earning men with college degrees are clocking fewer hours at work.
- They are the group that's leading the decrease in hours worked overall across the US.
- That's as men without degrees have been quitting due to perceived low social and financial prospects.
Some men aren't being so quiet about working less.
That's according to a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, which found that men with degrees who are in the top 20% of earners are leading the charge to clock in fewer hours at work.
Highly paid men typically work more hours than their peers, Yongseok Shin, an economist who co-wrote the paper, told The Wall Street Journal's Courtney Vinopal. That means they had more hours to cut while still maintaining their lead on other workers.
But it's causing a marked decline in overall number of hours worked in the US, as millions of other men are leaving the workforce completely. It's also contributing to a tight labor market, which persists as the country's labor shortage has become indefinite.
It's been clear for a while that American men are re-evaluating their relationship with work — research shows that this is true across income brackets, education level, and type of work performed, although one study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston notes that this trend mostly applies to white men.
"The lower participation rate is to a large extent a continuation of a trend that existed since the Great Recession," the researchers said. "The reduction in hours among workers is a new phenomenon induced by the pandemic, but available evidence suggests that it will likely stay with us."
Many men are either working less or quitting, depending on their income level
About one in nine men of prime working ages between 25 and 54 aren't working at all, the Boston Fed found last month. That's in contrast to one in 50 seven decades ago.
Fueling that figure are young men without college degrees, according to the Boston Fed. One reason is likely the pay: men without a college degree have seen their earnings fall by 30% since 1980 after accounting for inflation, compared to those of all "prime-age" workers between the ages of 25 and 54, the study reported.
In addition, men without a college degree are more likely to stop working or seeking work when their expected earnings fall in comparison to other workers. Work is a reflection of social status, and a lack of pay mobility reflects poorly on that status and marriageability, many men feel, the Boston Fed concluded.
That makes the contrast of the NBER findings more stark. Higher-paid men with college degrees have more financial mobility, and likely a stronger social self-estimation. So, while they're not quitting their jobs, they're looking for ways to spend less time at work.
It's in line with how many people, especially young people, have been changing their workplace investment over the past few years. The Great Resignation is still going as many workers take advantage of their bargaining power amid the labor shortage to land higher pay, and "quiet quitting" has entered the vernacular as others go on autopilot during the work day. The NBER paper suggests that men in high-paid jobs aren't just being quiet about working less — or switching to a job where they're encouraged to — they're openly telling their employers they're doing so, as the NBER study is based on actual worker-reported hours.
All of those phenomena — as well as increased labor activism since the start of the pandemic — may be in response to the same factors, James Detert, a professor of business administration at the University of Virginia, wrote last fall.
"As a management professor who has studied worker behavior for over two decades, I believe these are all reactions to the same problem: Workers are dissatisfied in their current jobs and feel they can't speak up, whether about organizational problems, unethical behavior or even just to contribute their knowledge and creative ideas," he said. "So in response, they generally either leave or decrease their effort while suffering in silence."
And the amount of money and workplace flexibility that higher-income people have is likely influencing the way they've decided to address their feelings about work.
"The pandemic may have motivated people to re-evaluate their life priorities," the researchers found, "and also gotten them accustomed to more flexible work arrangements (e.g.,work from home), leading them to choose to work fewer hours, especially if they can afford it."
Have you quit your job or cut back on the number of hours you work? Share your story with this reporter at jlalljee@insider.com.