Demographics are working hard against the participation rate improving anywhere near the late 90's/2000 highs of close to 70%
Check out these stats, pretty interesting. While participation rate for younger workers decreased from 2004 to 2014, rates went up for older workers. Seems contrary to what most people believe.
https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm
I think you're looking at it from the wrong end. There is a lot of information out there that baby boomers aren't retiring early or at the "normal" time. That is skewing your data a bit. It's also a HUGE issue for academic jobs. At some point, through health, or they finally feel "secure" they'll start retiring in mass and we'll see that balance change drastically.
If there was really positive job growth, there should be plenty of jobs to go around, and the 16-24 demographic should be increasing in participation rate rather than dropping 10% from 2004 to 2014. Is grandpa really taking that many jobs away from them?
If someone were taking jobs from them, they'd be counted as unemployed, not non-participants. These people would just rather not work. The only thing that will drive them to the workforce will be their parents kicking them out or their parents dying.
Well, several years back there was much discussion about this. The "unemployed vs not in the work force" definition seemed to change. If you were collecting unemployment payments, you are considered unemployed, but once your unemployment benefits ran out and you were still unemployed, you were no longer considered in the work force. This is how we got tho 4.5% unemployment
and the lowest participation rate in 40 years.