Where Are Working-Class Men Working?

A new project of mine on the near future of the economy

I generally assume that people aren’t reading much on Substack on Easter Morning, though maybe that’s untrue. Last year, I wrote a very short piece on trying to find The Meaning Of The Season, much as we talk about the meaning of Thanksgiving or Christmas. You can read that here:

If Seasons Even Have Meanings

But to keep it short and sweet, I’d like to talk about a very exciting bit of work I’m starting on—one that I hope to share on The Vocation Project in the coming months. A few weeks ago, I began work as a research assistant with my friend and teacher Grant Martsolf, whose writing you can find on The Savage Collective. (You’ll find a few of my pieces there as well.) Grant is a doctor of nursing at the University of Pittsburgh, though his concerns are broadly in human flourishing—that is, the complete fulfillment of the human person.¹

His new project is about human flourishing at work, much like The Vocation Project. But while The Vocation Project is very broad, this project is very specific. We’re looking at the future for working-class men in one of the only sectors where working-class jobs are still growing: Healthcare.

It’s a bit jarring to see how economically central healthcare will be. A majority of new working-class jobs are expected to come from the healthcare sector. Some readers, I’m sure, will lament that there isn’t more growth in sectors like manufacturing or education. I’m not here to pass judgment on what jobs are best—I just want to know what jobs we can hope for.

But while healthcare promises a steady supply of jobs to the working class, there’s one strange problem: Men rarely take these jobs. You’ll find very few men working as home health aides or nursing assistants. Why is this?

Well, I don’t know. There are a lot of reasons you could offer, whether they’re the practical facts of dollars and cents or the identity men associate with healthcare. This project is trying to make sense of that as we look to see where working-class men will find themselves in the economy of the near future.

But I’m excited to look at this topic, and I’m excited to share some of what I learn with you. In fact, I already wrote an article here a few weeks ago about why people can be so frustrated with meaningful jobs in healthcare:

Why People Quit Meaningful Jobs

In the process, I hope we can find something about just why we choose the jobs we choose—and, more practically, how we can make the most of whatever jobs we’ll find in the near future. I’m excited to share some of this with you—I hope you’ll keep reading and I hope to hear from you.

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1. His more rigorous definition goes like this: “Flourishing consists of the realization of basic, natural goods constitutive of human personhood emerging from our nature as fully embodied souls oriented toward others through the perfection of human capacities by virtuous action facilitated by the presence of supportive social preconditions.”