Andrew Yang, the businessman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, got right to the point on The Washington Post website when his recent column began like this: “Here is one of the biggest problems facing America: Boys and men across all regions and ethnic groups have been failing, both absolutely and relatively, for years.”
According to Yang, boys are more than twice as likely as girls to be diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Boys are five times more likely to spend time in a juvenile detention facility. They are less likely to finish high school than girls are.
“It doesn’t get better when boys become adults,” Yang added. “Men now make up only 40.5% of college students. Male community college enrollment declined by 14.7% in 2020 alone, compared with 6.8% for women. Median wages for men have declined since 1990 in real terms. Roughly one-third of men are either unemployed or out of the workforce. More U.S. men ages 18 to 34 are now living with their parents than with romantic partners.”
For these issues, Yang assigns much of the blame to America’s ongoing economic transformation from its industrial base to the new technology base. He says there are 5 million fewer manufacturing jobs today than there were in 2000.
He connects this to a steady decline in marriage rates, citing data that indicates 70% of adults without a college degree were married in 1960, while only 45% were in 2010. He also believes the rising number of single-parent homes, led mostly by women, ultimately gives some kids the impression that higher education is something to which only women should aspire.
Yang offers several solutions to help more boys become good men. The work of schools that do a good job leading boys should be copied. Vocational education should be expanded. Non-profits like Big Brothers and the YMCA should receive more assistance. The government should subsidize marriage counseling and renew its enhanced child tax credit.
Lost in all this is a simple question: Where are all the men who by their indifference are allowing too many boys to grow up without enough guidance? It doesn’t have to be the biological father; it could be a grandfather, an uncle, an older cousin — anybody who can show more boys the right way and hold them accountable when they stray too far from it.
This is not meant to demean the efforts of women. There are far too many single-parent success stories to say that mothers can’t raise children by themselves. This also is not an argument for couples to stay together when a marriage or partnership is broken.
But this is definitely meant to say that raising children into productive citizens is almost always easier when two committed adults are involved — especially in a changing economy that is affecting the future of a lot of boys.
If Yang’s statistics are anywhere near accurate, it’s going to take a long time to get a grip on these problems. It’s time for good men to step up.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
