If the recession and recovery played a big role in young men working less, then work rates should improve the further we move into the economic expansion. And that’s exactly what seems to be happening. The employment-to-population ratio — the share of a particular population with a job — for 20- to 24-year-olds fell to 61.3 percent in 2010 from 72.7 percent in 2006, the last full non-recession year.
But that number has since rebounded to 66.2 percent. Is video game quality suddenly getting worse? Of course not. It’s just that an improving labor market seems to be drawing young men back in. Indeed, as the study notes, non-employed young men actually reduced their total leisure time by five hours a week between 2012 and 2015, versus the 2004-2007 period, as they scrambled to find a job. That, even though total time spent gaming increased.
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