Selective Use of Trends in Examining Labor Force Participation Rates

There has been a huge drop in employment in this downturn with the employment to population ratio (EPOP) still only 0.4 percentage points above its low for the downturn. It is still more than four full percentage points below its pre-recession level. Clearly part of this is due to the weakness of the economy, but part can be due to people voluntarily opting out of the labor force.

One reason to think the latter could be important is the aging of the baby boomers. The oldest baby boomers are...