Kerby Anderson

Here is a social statistic that should concern all Americans, and deserves attention from leaders in government, pastors in churches, and parents in the home. Young men are falling further behind. That is the title of a Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Wolfe.

“More women ages 25 to 34 have entered the workforce in recent years than ever. The share of young men in the labor market, meanwhile, hasn’t grown in a decade.” Place her statistics with another that I cited just a few months ago. America has 7 million young men (ages 25-54) who are not working and not looking for work.

One reason is attitude. Richard Reeves (president of American Institute for Boys and Men) explains, “The sense a lot of young men have is not being sure that they are needed or that they are going to be needed by their families, by their communities, by society.”

This leads to the phenomenon known as a failure to launch. “In Spanish, parents call it encaminado: making sure your children are on the path to an independent adulthood.” One in three young adults live with their parents. And young men are more likely to live with their parents than young women. Former Senator Ben Sasse wrote about this in his book, The Vanishing Adult: Our Coming-of-Age Crisis and How to Rebuild a Culture of Self-Reliance.

Steven Malanga argues in his essay Unemployable that “a growing number of Americans aren’t simply out of a job. There are no longer fit for work.” Many young men do not have a good work ethic and haven’t been prepared by the schools for the labor market.

The crisis of young men in America deserves our attention. Government leaders and church leaders need to take note.