Why work and school are failing young men
Until the last century, American women were treated as second-class citizens. They couldn’t vote, rarely worked outside the home, and opportunities for higher education were slim.
As more opportunities opened up, especially over the past 50 years, women rapidly advanced in all those areas. The change to American business, culture and politics has been astonishing.
But along the same timeline, men have fallen behind on nearly every important measure.
By 1980, women made up 52% of students enrolled in college; the first time they held the advantage. Today, that has risen to 58%, with just 42% of the student body being male.
In K-12 education, the top 10% of American students are two-thirds female, while the bottom 10% is twothirds male. This leads to boys being much more likely to be held back a grade or simply drop out.
It’s no wonder they aren’t heading to universities.
As a father of daughters, I’m happy to see girls achieve so much academically and professionally.
I don’t want that to come at the expense of boys, however. This inequality doesn’t need to be the case, but our institutions are failing young men.
The workplace isn’t much different from the schools.
As of last year, there were 9 million men between the ages of 25 and 54 who weren’t in the labor force. If the participation rate was equivalent to its 1990 level, there would be 2.7 million more prime-age males in the workforce.
It appears that the more boys struggle in school, the more they drop out of academics and the workforce. And life itself.
So-called “deaths by despair” are increasingly common, with nearly four times as many suicides among men as women. In a 20-year span ending in 2020, male suicides increased by nearly 24%.
More men also are dying due to drug overdoses and gun violence.
“While rates of death from drug overdose and homicide have climbed for both men and women, it is clear that men constitute an increasingly disproportionate share of these deaths,” Dr. Brandon Yan, a resident physician at the University of California, San Francisco, said.
These dire outcomes are even worse
for men in disadvantaged communities.
So, what is going on here? And what can be done?
In his book “Of Boys and Men,” Brookings Institute scholar Richard Reeves lays out a few theories. One factor is certainly the difference between how boys’ and girls’ brains develop at different paces.
While kids all start school at about the same age, girls have more mature impulse control and emotional management. (I noticed this taking place by first grade.)
It results in boys being less intellectually prepared to begin K-12 education, and girls retaining an academic advantage throughout schooling.
Reeves’ simple solution is to have boys wait an extra year before starting kindergarten, something wealthier parents have been doing for years.
Once grown, men face a more difficult job market. One reason is that they’re overrepresented in fields like production, transportation and construction — jobs that are more likely to be automated.
This could be fixed, Reeves says, by encouraging men to study health, education, administration and literacy. Just as campaigns have promoted women in STEM, more men in HEAL jobs would diminish technological replacement and diversify those careers.
Helping all of our kids is not a zerosum game. The rise of women in education and the workforce isn’t helped by diminishing the prospects for men.
And to be perfectly selfish, I’d like a few more educated and gainfully employed young men for my daughters to build their own families with.