The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind

by Raghuram G. Rajan

A reduction in job opportunities for men tends, therefore, to increase the percentage of unmarried mothers, as well as of children living in single-parent households. Interestingly, while Wilson offered this explanation for the social breakdown of poor black urban communities starting in the 1970s, recent studies document a similar social breakdown in the largely white semirural communities that we discussed in the last chapter.24 Once again, albeit with a gap of a quarter of a century or so, the reason seems to be economic, as manufacturing jobs have disappeared because of trade and automation.25 Without stable families, communities are greatly weakened. Too many men, without the anchor of family and responsibility, have turned to substance abuse and crime, resulting in an early hopeless death, both in the black community that Wilson analysed, and in white semirural communities today.

Joblessness & its affects on community