Male nonworkers: Who are they and who supports them?

Although male nonworkers have become a larger fraction of the population since the late 1960s, very little is known about who they are or who supports them. Using data from the March Current Population Survey and the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this article fills that void. The picture that emerges is that there is a small cadre of marginal workers who often do not work for periods of a year or more. The vast majority of nonworking men (men who do not work at all during the year) receive unearned income from at least one source, and the amount of unearned income they receive varies significantly by their reason for not working. Family members provide an important alternative source of support for nonworking men who have little or no unearned income of their own.