Does “the end of men” begin in fatherless homes?

It’s the “end of men” theme again, but this time with a new diagnosis. The story so far. Feminist Hanna Rosin says men are sinking in the workforce because they are just not as adaptable as women to the demands of a changing workforce for more education. Conservative Charles Murray says men have given up the commitment to working because the welfare state has sapped their motivation.

But now MIT professor David H. Autor and a co-researcher have dug a little deeper and suggest that family experiences may be critical in the divergent fortunes of men and women in the labour market, reports the New York Times:

Only 63 percent of children lived in a household with two parents in 2010, down from 82 percent in 1970. The single parents raising the rest of those children are predominantly female. And there is growing evidence that sons raised by single mothers “appear to fare particularly poorly,” Professor Autor wrote in an analysis for Third Way, a centre-left policy research organisation.

A vicious cycle can result in which less successful men are less attractive as husbands, so that women choose to raise children by themselves, producing sons who are also less attractive as husbands...

Read more at Mercator.Net.