“If the increasing wage gap between high and low earners directly or indirectly affects men’s aggregate labor supply, wage inequality might have carried wider implications to the economy than previously believed,” Wu wrote.
https://fortune.com/2022/12/07/men-dropping-out-work-force-status-study/
That's kind of what this article is about. They said social standing is tied to how much they are making relative to everyone else. And non college educated men saw wages decreased while college educated men and all women saw it increase
So people don't want to do back breaking labor for shit pay that's worse than what everyone else makes
Except nowhere in the article do they explicitly say that. In fact they don't even imply the 'back breaking labor part'. I had to explicitly state it because it's what I've actually seen.
Instead this article is subtle dumb shit that implies that non-college men are dropping out of the work force because they can't handle women making as much as them, which is something I have rarely, if ever, encountered in that age demographic outside of incredibly conservative circles, most of whom still wouldn't quit because of that issue, they would just bitch about it.
It does not say they can't handle women making more, it says people quit when their wages fall relative to others, including college educated men
It mentions women once to say that they have seen a pay increase regardless of education status.
I did add the back breaking work part since you were talking about hard physical labor. The article does not say what jobs the non-college educated men were doing but some of those jobs with declining wages would be like that