Nina Easton of Fortune is the latest columnist to note the disturbing evidence about declining economic prospects for American men.
[A] less noticed and equally troubling phenomenon is happening much further down the economic ladder: Men are disappearing from the bottom rungs. MIT economists David Autor and Melanie Wasserman spell it out in a new study: While women are adjusting to the 21st-century economy — graduating from college at higher rates than men and then migrating into higher-paying jobs — the average guy is moving backward. “Although a significant minority of males continues to reach the highest echelons of achievement in education and labor markets, the median male is moving in the opposite direction,” the authors write in “Wayward Sons,” a study for the centrist think tank Third Way.
College degrees now offer the highest income premium in history, but men’s educational-attainment levels are dropping. Today’s typical 38-year-old woman is 23% more likely than her male counterpart to hold a four-year degree. “Females have fared better than males in every educational category,” note Autor and Wasserman.
Other social scientists have documented that a growing portion of the male population is opting out of employment altogether — a trend among prime-working-age men that political scientist Charles Murray shows predates the 2008 financial crash. Says demographer Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute: “This exit from gainful work for men is historically unprecedented.”
It’s a theme that fits with evidence N.C. Education Alliance Fellow Kristen Blair has documented.
