(Traditional Gender Roles are Changing cont. 1)

Male Crisis

Based on US data, there is some evidence that the male section of the population is struggling.

In the classroom

- a higher percentage of girls are school ready at the age of 5 than boys

- girl students significantly outperform their male equivalents, ie
"...roughly 2/3 of the students at the lowest decile are boys..."
David Brooks, 2022

A similar story prevails in the workplace, ie men are struggling with around a third of American workers (around 5 million men), with only a high school diploma, are unemployed.
"...men who entered the workforce in 1983 will earn about 10% less in real terms in their lifetimes than those who started a generation earlier. Over the same period, women's lifetime earnings have increased 33%..."
David Brooks, 2022

Trends that are adding to the male crisis include

- decline in manufacturing jobs that required physical strength

- more women moving into 'traditional' male managerial roles (this means it is harder for men to rise up the hierarchy as they are competing against other men and now, women)

- the rise of service sector jobs that are more suitable for women

- women appear to be more motivated, work harder, etc

- there is an aspiration gap, eg
"...in 2020, amid COVID-19, the decline in college enrolment of male students was 7 times that of female students..."
David Brooks, 2022

"...it's not that men have fewer opportunities. It is that they are not taking them..."
Richard Reeves as quoted by David Brooks, 2022

Men are struggling in other areas
"...Men account for close to 3 out of every 4 'deaths of despair' - suicide and drug overdoses. For every 100 middle-aged women who died of COVID-19 up till mid-September 2021, there were 180 male deaths..."
David Brooks, 2022

Research is showing

- boys are much more hindered by challenging environments than girls, eg girls from poor neighbourhoods and/or unstable families are more likely to succeed than boys

- at school, boys' academic performance is more influenced by family background than girls' performance, eg boys raised by single parents have lower rates of college enrolment than girls raised by single parents

- policies and programs (from early childhood education to college support efforts) designed to promote social mobility work better for women than men, eg programs to increase college degrees for women have resulted in a 45% increase in female graduation; however, they had no impact on men's graduation.

- men are leading lonely lives
"... Roughly 15% of men say they have no close friends, up from 3% in 1990. One in 5 fathers doesn't live with his children. In 2014, more young men were living with their parents than a partner......wives are twice as likely to initiate divorce as husbands......many men have an obsolete idea that being a man means being the main bread winner for your family. Then they can't make an ideal situation. Demoralisation follows..."
David Brooks, 2022

Men are searching for a modern masculine ideal as traditional roles are being challenged.

Some suggestions to rectify this include

- boys starting kindergarten 1 year later than girls as
"...on average the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum, which are involved in self-regulation, mature much earlier in girls than boys..."
David Brooks, 2022.