From Charles Murray's excellent book: Coming Apart: the State of White America.
The strange case of workers who have convinced the government that they are unable to work: The percentage of workers who actually are physically or emotionally unable to work for reasons beyond their control has necessarily gone down since 1960. Medical care now cures or alleviates many ailments that would have prevented a person from working in 1960. Technology has produced compensations for physical handicaps and intellectual limitations. Many backbreaking manual jobs in 1960 are now done by sitting at the controls of a Bobcat. Yet the percentage of people qualifying for federal disability benefits because they are unable to work rose from 0.7 percent of the size of the labor force in 1960 to 5.3 percent in 2010.
This is really quite remarkable. This sharp increase comes at a time when work is easier, and people work les. It does not count drug addiction, and it is not explained by changes in the criteria of disability, which have remained very similar.
Murray argues that Americans, particularly in the lower class, are growing "less industrious."
Despite this trend, is American productivity not one of the highest in the world? This would seem to contradict the claim Americans are becoming less industrious.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a decline in a religion over the past decades has had an unforeseen impact. I'm referring to the Protestant Work Ethic, ie doing good works and being productive to emulate the glory of God, while idleness was considered to be sinful.
Now that society is more or less secular, I wonder if the decline of these religious ethics regarding 'work' has played a role in developing our current attitudes of becoming "less industrious".
Thoughts?
American workers are productive. However, productivity is mostly a function of technological change and globalization. Industriousness is a cultural value (the Protestant ethic etc...). Is it possible that Americans are at once more productive and less industrious?
ReplyDeleteI think this is far more accurately a reflection of better tools of diagnosis being available to doctors. There was probably a large number of people doing work in the late 60s that we now understand to be hazardous to our health--off the top of my head I'd think of work relating to asbestos as an example, or our increased understanding of carpal tunnel syndrome
ReplyDeleteWhat I mean is that I think we've simply become more aware of ailments that would be further aggravated by work whereas we were previously ignorant or may have had a "tough it out" attitude.
Certainly there are people that fraud the system, but I don't think these stats speak to a growing lack of industriousness.
But like I said, the criteria for disability are virutally unchanged. Furthermore, just about all of the changes in the nature of work during this period would push towards having less disability in the work force. And, just as our understanding of medicine has improved, so has our ability to treat disability, and to prevent.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, It's honestly hard for me to believe that there in 1960 that 5 PERCENT of the workforece was "really" disabled and not diagnosed. That's massive.
It speaks, rather, to a change in cultural values among the "lower class/white community" away from 'industry.'