, , , , , 50% labor participation, etc. it just chooses to ignore them for fear of looking weak.
It's like how a weightlifter might choose to ignore symptoms of diabetes for fear of looking weak. Everyone thinks the weightlifter must be super fit because "only if you have good health can you afford to weightlift". But that's not true. Many have chronic diseases that they ignore because they don't want to think about what happens when they become weak from disease, especially if they've been beating up alot of people. Ironically that makes it so that when the disease finally does strike in an unignorable way, it is often too late for treatment.
