It’s still not good for man to be alone

Tell men over and over again that their masculinity is toxic, and it tends to have an impact. Scott Galloway, a NYU business professor and manhood guru on the left, recently told Ross Douthat on his Interesting Times podcast, “I worry that we’re evolving a new species of asocial, asexual males.” Yes, it is well established that men are floundering today like never before. But are there any young men doing better than others, and can we determine why?

The excellent team of scholars over at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) has just released the second part of its essential two-part series (part one is here) that takes inventory of how young men are doing today. They note, “We find that a large majority of men (73%) believe that in recent decades it has become harder to know what it is to be a man.”

Yet, the team’s data presents an instructive good news/bad news tale. Working from a nationally representative YouGov sample of 2,000 young men, ages 18-29, IFS explains its aim “was to allow young men to express themselves on a range of personal issues.” Few scholars and journalists are listening carefully to men today, and this report could (and should!) serve as a reversal of that trend.

Part 1 of this report, released last March, encouragingly reports that a majority of young men today desire to be married and become fathers, with 68% and 62% reporting this longing, respectively. Young men feel marriage and fatherhood are important milestones in becoming good men, while 21% of men are unsure they want to marry and only 10% express no interest. Yet, 59% percent of young men were not in a romantic relationship at the time of the survey. Matchmakers in their communities have to get busy helping young men make matches.

This research also found that young men, contrary to the narrative about them dwelling in parents’ basements, are not apathetic nor self-absorbed. A full 89% agreed that being a man “involves strength, responsibility and leadership” and 85% believe being a man “requires a willingness to sacrifice for others.” These men also reported that finding a good job that pays a decent salary is a primary concern by a wide margin. Young men are not slackers, but they do confess that they struggle to find the proper route to becoming the men they desire to be. We must appreciate that our churches are full of good older men who can serve as fantastic role models and guides to these younger men. We must be creatively diligent about making these connections.

Young men are indeed being outpaced by women in college attendance and graduation by a notable margin, and this has been true for some time now. Labor force participation has dropped for young men since 1960 from 86% to 78% today. Specifically, their part-time and full-time work engagement for those not pursuing a college education has dropped from 93% to 87%. This means increased male idleness, but this percentage is better than the IFS scholars anticipated.

Their report found “two-thirds of young men view financial independence from parents and being able to provide for others as either ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ important for becoming an adult.” They see this as a fundamental prerequisite to becoming the good husband and father the majority of them aspire to become.

Young men also report relatively high levels of satisfaction with the work they do. When asked “how satisfied are you with your current job,” a full 42% say they are “very satisfied,” while another 46% say they are “somewhat satisfied.” Just 12% said they were “very or somewhat dissatisfied.”

Part II of this report, released in early August, looks at important social aspects of contemporary manhood and appraises young American men as “demoralized, but not defeated.” This demoralization is significant to be sure. Nearly half of young men today (43%) agree that “I am inclined to think that I am a failure.” This is certainly not good news, but it does mean they at least have expectations for themselves. A majority (54%) confess feeling like “I never seem to do enough to please people.” They don’t feel as if they are achieving their expectations for themselves.

In our seemingly hyper-connected society, loneliness is the social cancer of our age, and this plague is certainly hitting men. A quarter of men today say they feel lonely “all/most of the time” (25%) or isolated (25%). Not surprisingly, young men who work and/or go to school are much less likely to feel isolated and lonely, with work providing greater social connection and satisfaction over school.

IFS found that men who are married with children have richer and more rewarding social connections. Young married dads were the most likely to say they have “never” or seldom felt lonely in the past 30 days at 68%, while husbands without kids yet were the second highest at 60%. Being secular, out of school, and not working had greater association with being lonely “all or most of the time.”

Married fathers among this 18–29-year age group were also most likely to report having a larger number of close friends. Those with a stronger faith and those with at least a bachelor’s degree were the runners-up in the friend race behind married dads.

Likewise, married fathers report enjoying markedly higher levels of social support while married childless men fall just behind. Both consistently do better in important social support measures than their unmarried and childless peers, and by sizable gaps.

Married men who had a serious faith were also least likely to view pornography “daily” or “several times a week.” Yet only 31% of married men and 35% of religious men said they “never” used pornography. They were also least likely to be frequent gamers.

So there are some very positive indicators surrounding young men in America. And they center around the things that have always tended to make men better. Marriage and fatherhood give men real, essential purpose, connecting to a larger and more dynamic network of rewarding and purposeful friendships. As marriage and fatherhood decline further among men though, we can expect more debilitating feelings of loneliness and idleness and feelings of failure. When more young men increasingly experience these things, it is bad news for all of us.