“A vicious cycle may ensue,” wrote Professor [David H.] Autor and his co-author, Melanie Wasserman, a graduate student, “with the poor economic prospects of less educated males creating differentially large disadvantages for their sons, thus potentially reinforcing the development of the gender gap in the next generation.”
March 20, 2013
"[T]he economic struggles of male workers are both a cause and an effect of the breakdown of traditional households."
"Men who are less successful are less attractive as partners, so women are choosing to raise children by themselves, producing sons who are less successful and attractive as partners."
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As long as sex is freely available, don't expect this spiral to change.
"Men who are less successful are less attractive as partners, so women are choosing to raise children by themselves, producing sons who are less successful and attractive as partners."
I don't believe this for a second. Traditional families are breaking down because men know they don't have to get married to get the pleasures of marriage. It's the sexual revolution that killed marriage.
Just as the rest of the male gender has melted into a gooey mess leaving me outstanding and special, I aged into invisibility. That's great!
This is why I support polygamy.
According to this, I'm quite the catch. But I'm already taken.
If society would only recognize the error of their ways and allow me to engage other young women to develop well-rounded, intelligent sons.
I suppose I could convince my wife by telling her how I was saving the human race.
I don't believe this for a second. Traditional families are breaking down because men know they don't have to get married to get the pleasures of marriage. It's the sexual revolution that killed marriage.
For far too many, this is true.
For some of us, the legal discrimination that confronts men when it comes to "family law" has as much if not more to do with it.
Is it the women who are choosing to raise the children alone? Or are the men choosing not to stick around?
I guess Occupy needs a new address. But what is it?
Men have always been able to get sex without marriage. Men want to get married at some point, but they just don't want to end up with a bitchy wife who divorces them and ruins the rest of their life. Understandable isn't it? We now expect that to be the eventual outcome. This is the overwhelming reason why men don't marry.
Neither men nor women can be trusted, and forgiveness is the harder road today.
Occupy childhood.
Males will eventually cease to exist. They will spontaneously self-abort in the womb.
Traditional families are breaking down because men know they don't have to get married to get the pleasures of marriage.
Fools and very young men might think this, but that would require them not listening to currently married older men who tell them otherwise.
There's no single thing, including simply shacking up for extended periods, that can give a man the same soul-satisfying contentment as marrying and raising a family with a woman you love.
Marriage is no longer a necessity to either sex as it once was, so marriage may well become a minority lifestyle. People will do it if they want it bad enough. Some children will be raised by singles and it won't be the end of the world. The problem is dependency - people who can't support their own choices.
"[T]he economic struggles of male workers are both a cause and an effect of the breakdown of traditional households."
Women and minorities hardest hit.
Fools and very young men might think this, but that would require them not listening to currently married older men who tell them otherwise.
Kind of a narrow sample, isn't it? Maybe they're listening to the currently divorced older men too?
People need to just take responsibility for who they have sex with.
You make a child, you keep it and the person you made it with.
"... that can give a man the same soul-satisfying contentment as marrying and raising a family with a woman you love."
Some people just have a way of appreciating what they have. Some married and some single. In the same way many others are never happy, and getting married or divorced does not seem to change that for them.
Damn, I wish this could have been foreseen. We could have done something about it.
Quotas that punish white hetero males certainly could not have anything to do with this.
Anti-male colleges, each with a Diversity Department ginning up grievances and fake hate crimes couldn't be to blame either.
Shades of Julia :)
One wonders that if we didn't have all these great society social programs that make single motherhood more attactive than marriage to a blue collar guy, we might have more stable but more poor families, and better social mobility for the offspring...
How is it possible that this was not predicted? Also, as individual dignity continues to suffer denigration under social justice and redistributive change regimes, why is there now a concern for equal treatment?
This is a consequence of a reactive philosophy which persists to normalization. The first victim of "progress" was reason. The "progress" people were promised was purchased with an exchange of liberty for submission with selective benefits.
sydney:
That's another problem. The division manufactured and fomented between men and women. However, consider the majority of marriages which end with "irreconcilable differences." Men and women are trying to live normal lives, but before they do, their efforts are sabotaged. This is in part the outcome of the sexual revolution. But consider the origin of irreconcilable differences. This follows from unreasonable expectations, which remain unclarified because of a short-circuited, repurposed dating process.
We are observing the convergence of multiple streams of dysfunction. In part due to dissociation of risk. In part due to exploitation of base desires. In part due to men and women who exploit dysfunction to advance their political, economic, and social standing.
Men want to get married at some point, but they just don't want to end up with a bitchy wife who divorces them and ruins the rest of their life. [...] This is the overwhelming reason why men don't marry. - bagoh20
Exactly. You have to be a moron to get married. This is one reason men are becoming "less successful." Why bother, if you don't need to provide for a family? A man can do quite well for himself on his own on a fraction of what it takes to marry, buy a second car, buy a house, support kids, buy more cars, educate the kids, and pay the inevitable alimony to an ungrateful shrew.
A gender gap in favor of women? Preposterous. there is no such beast.
The Drill SGT:
It certainly follows from the corruption engendered by "the great society". It also follows from displacement through fanatical environmental policies; displacement through excessive legal and unmeasured illegal immigration; displacement through globalization; displacement through persistent affirmative action (i.e. denigration of individual dignity); marginalization of half the population through fanatical feminism; general devaluation of human life through abortion and other dysfunctional behaviors; etc.
The problem is comprehensive.
It is a dysfunctional convergence which feeds from men and women who dream of material, physical, and ego instant (or immediate) gratification without consequence; and the opportunists who exploit these dreams with promises that exceed the constrains of reality, and human and civil rights.
"Single-parent families tend to emerge in places where men are already a mess."
Life lesson for young females, don't hook up with a loser and for gawd's sake don't have children with him.
Let us remember at the appropriate point in the future that Althouse cannot envision any negative consequences from "gay marriage."
It's a "human right," although one only invented a couple of decades ago.
So, we gotta go ahead with it, because ideals are always right.
[T]he economic struggles of male workers are both a cause and an effect of the breakdown of traditional households
Althouse's choice of a banner differs from the linked article's headline; hers seems to hint who is to blame: men themselves and fathers in particular.
Is her solution for men to become more like women?
Single-parent families tend to emerge in places where men are already a mess.
Of course, it's the men's fault. They're losers ... because patriarchy!
3/20/13, 5:15 PM
Nomennovum:
Not all women. There are women who appreciate the circumstances of reality and individual dignity. Be careful to not waste your time while dating. It is not simply about "friends with benefits." It is also not a romantic holiday. It is the preliminary phase in understanding and reconciling each other's expectations.
Single-parent families tend to emerge in places where men are already a mess.
i.e., most conspicuously among blacks and hispanics.
What if it's men who are doing the choosing? That would mean the number of undesirable women is increasing.
"And pay the inevitable alimony to an ungrateful shrew."
Narcissism is what has destroyed the family.
Inga said...Life lesson for young females, don't hook up with a loser and for gawd's sake don't have children with him.
Indeed, don't have his children...have HHS' instead!
Marriage isn't going away, but it's the smart people who will marry. The stupids will only think about sex and not understand marriage involves protections as well as responsibilities.
The Democrats are just doing to white people what they've done to blacks and Hispanics.
Barry said he wanted to spread the wealth around, he just didn't mention it would be among fewer people.
And all those trolls who believe in him will call us racist and bitter and think it's so swell white people are living so miserably, but won't be able to understand why they are, too.
wyo sis said...
Damn, I wish this could have been foreseen. We could have done something about it.
It was, but too many people went around singing, "La la la la la la, live for today".
By a large majority, it is women who initiate divorce.
I read with great alarm, from time to time, the chat rooms where women discuss whether they ought to get rid of their husband and father of their child.
Any level of "abuse," which now includes the most minute infractions will result in a shrill chorus of "Leave the SOB!" from the assembled ladies.
And, I've noticed that the ladies launch into these tirades on behalf of the purportedly "abused" victim without ever having heard the side of the husband. Apparently, that the husband might have a different version of events never occurred to them.
Ahh Bagoh -- I can assure you there is a good woman out there for you. Unattachded sensible men who love dogs are hard to find these days in your particular age group. (cough cough)
What's a minor infraction to you ST? I don't know any women who automatically say "leave the SOB", unless it's for a damn good reason.
I blame women. They raise men.
And, I've noticed that the ladies launch into these tirades on behalf of the purportedly "abused" victim without ever having heard the side of the husband.
Reminds me of a cartoon I saw a long time ago: couple sitting in a marriage counselor's office, and the wife says, "Okay, that's my side of the story, now let me tell you his!"
What's a minor infraction to you ST? I don't know any women who automatically say "leave the SOB", unless it's for a damn good reason.
You defined the "damn good reason" and I'll define the "minor infraction."
In my opinion, marriage is about triumphing over the good and the bad, not running out when you think you are "abused."
I'll quote you my late wife, Myrna, for the second time today. When we were about to get married, she warned me that she had no intention of ever letting me out of the deal.
You're getting out over my dead body, was her exact words.
Since when is the fact that your spouse is struggling a reason to bolt?
To see just how crazy the idea of "abuse" is being downgraded, read Steve Sailer on the concept of "micro-aggressions."
If the spouse is abusive he/ she is struggling. Yes indeed. I suspect it's quite a burden for the abused spouse too.
I'm sure there are many varying concepts of what constitutes abuse just here on this thread.
Should she stay? What a gal, takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. (Or guy)
One of the "minor infractions" I remember the ladies' chorus ranting on about at great length was a woman who complained that her husband criticized her frequently about her weight. She admitted that she had gained a lot of weight since they married.
The ladies' chorus immediately counseled her to get rid of her "abusive" husband.
Now, I can think of some reasons that would provoke a husband to complain about his wife's weight, although I seriously doubt that such an approach will do any good.
Obesity is a serious health problem, often leading to diabetes, which can be fatal. Obesity is also a serious turn-off in one's sex life.
I suggested as much to the ladies, who responded as one, suggesting that I must also be an abusive rat.
Not all women. There are women who appreciate the circumstances of reality and individual dignity. - nn
Maybe, but for how long? A woman's love is always conditional and qualified. With no-fault divorce, the temptation to rationalize the destruction of a family is too great for any man to chance.
"What if it's men who are doing the choosing? That would mean the number of undesirable women is increasing."
This is my perception. Having seen a couple of decades of change living in a couple of different urban environments, I see that young women are more physically attractive than ever, thanks to advances in nutrition and exercise and hair/makeup technology and such, but far more awful personally/emotionally. I see unhappy married men all around me. I feel good about my choice not to join them.
Study: Casual sex only rewarding for the first few decades
ST, if the hubby is a mean nasty prick about it, she should get in shape and then leave him, just kidding! The harranging most certainly won't help the woman lose weight and feel better about herself, she will have to do it for herself. If she over eats to cope with a jerk of a husband, then perhaps leaving him would be best.
Nomennovum said...
Not all women. There are women who appreciate the circumstances of reality and individual dignity. - nn
Maybe, but for how long? A woman's love is always conditional and qualified. With no-fault divorce, the temptation to rationalize the destruction of a family is too great for any man to chance.
Disagree.
A lot of women will go through Hell with a man. The shelters are full of them. You also see a lot of nurses who take on a man as a reclamation project.
(She Devil of the SS in 5, 4, 3...)
In a lot more cases than we probably think, the ones who stay are the ones who should leave and vice versa.
PS On the issue women and weight, you're a classy guy, Shout.
You defined the "damn good reason" and I'll define the "minor infraction."
LOL, ST. A "damn good reason" is whatever reason works for a woman.
The most common "damn good reasons" are the woman is unhappy and the man doesn't communicate.
Woman can rationalize any dispicable behavior on their part.
All you Boomers wanted "Change", you got change. What are you complaining about?
Single-parent families tend to emerge in places where the government replaces men in the family unit and in the economic need to partner with another person.
In other words, who needs a 'man' when you can have Uncle Sugar doling out the goodies. Plus Uncle Sugar isn't going to leave his dirty underwear on the floor.
The plan is, of course, to undermine the nuclear family so that the children will be raised to be good little cogs in the government machine.
A "damn good reason" is whatever reason works for a woman.
The most common "damn good reasons" are the woman is unhappy and the man doesn't communicate.
My ex (20+ years ago) was fucking who I thought was my best friend while I was the one working and then she would ask me to babysit her kids for her while he and she were sneaking off to fuck some more. Everyone but me knew about it. [damn! I was naive and trusting]
Good enough reason?
He and she are lucky to be alive. His truck didn't fare too well. In retrospect, it was the best thing to ever happen to me and I wonder why I waited so long.
I've seen that scenario go both ways, DBQ.
Females do plenty of screwing around these days, too. I suspect they always have.
My ex (20+ years ago) was fucking who I thought was my best friend
Don't you mean,"My best friend was fucking my husband"?
It was the best thing to ever happen to me and I wonder why I waited so long.
Sounds like there was more going on in your marriage, DBQ, and you were already thinking of getting out. Was the betrayal by fornication more upsetting because it involved your friend rather than your husband?
You can bet that many of the people driving the changes that have led to such developments will simply suggest more change.
More equality, more feminism as a civil right, more regulating the economy and more wrapping men up in the bosom of the social sciences.
Imagination is the culprit. We can all imagine a perfect life with a perfect partner, and no one ever fantasizes about a good life with a good enough partner..... I think attractive upper middle class women expect way too much out of life. They have a good selection when younger, but the moment passes and then the selection is no longer there.....On the other hand, they have the consolations of a career, and vibrator technology has improved exponentially. There are worse states than spinsterhood. Nevada in summer for example.
Inga, the Inga who comments here and mixes it up then plays the victim, is probably ok with shame, control, laws and moral judgments as long as they line up with her progressive ideals.
The rest of you are along for the ride to paradise
Chrisnavin, the Chris who presumes to know what I think, because he knows the mind of " the liberal". Heh.
DBQ wrote: My ex (20+ years ago) was fucking who I thought was my best friend while I was the one working and then she would ask me to babysit her kids for her while he and she were sneaking off to fuck some more. Everyone but me knew about it. [damn! I was naive and trusting]
What a fool he must have been--and with your golf handicap, even!
You can bet that many of the people driving the changes that have led to such developments will simply suggest more change.
They already are. It's called, euphemistically, "gay marriage."
I would say that the breakdown of the traditional family is the cause and the lack of male achievement is the effect. The incentives simply aren't there anymore for the average guy to bust his ass and be a breadwinner as in pre-feminist times.
Call me Carnac.
Shouting Thomas wrote: Let us remember at the appropriate point in the future that Althouse cannot envision any negative consequences from "gay marriage."
In the here and now the trend toward single-parent families has nothing at all to do with gay marriage. Nothing whatsoever.
One thing gay couples do is pick up the pieces. The lesbian couple I know best: Mothers to an adopted child. A college friend: father to three abandoned children. A college flatmate and his husband: dedicated foster parents.
Gay marriage is not the solution because the people who have kids out of wedlock are in a completely different demographic pool. But gay marriage can be a solution -- a support structure for more people to provide more stability to more children.
Without affirmative action, Obama would just be a govt drone maybe running a municipal playground, living in a basement apartment and watching ESPN 247 and whining about racism.
Was the betrayal by fornication more upsetting because it involved your friend rather than your husband?
Both. Being played for a fool and becoming the object of pity is the worst betrayal. Fool me once....yeah...just once. NO other chances.
(This was presented to you as an example of a damn good reason to kick the bastard out.)
If you are going to cheat just quit the current relationship BEFORE beginning a relationship with someone else. It is an either or thing. You can't do both. This is why I will never respect Hillary Clinton. She has no principles.
LOL @ Chick....My current husband of 20 years agrees.
ST @ 5:36:
Microagressions? Hoooly Shit - never heard that term. But now I have a word for what I was calling: "Verbal shit that you should let roll of your back otherwise you are giving the speaker too much power."
Some people just have a way of appreciating what they have. Some married and some single. In the same way many others are never happy, and getting married or divorced does not seem to change that for them.
In my experience, having and raising children is one of the great human experiences, but you have to do it to understand it.
I always thought the Vagina was for fun, and would have continued to, except those sick people who feel men ought to participate in the birthing process. Oh, I know, a hundred people are going to say "Oh, it's a wonderful experience."
No it's not: it's an ugly, gooey mess. When my wife had our eldest, upon beholding him, should I say "him?" it seemed more like some hopelessly deformed "it," I was certain she had been cheating on me because he was black. But, it then turned out he wasn't black at all, but merely purple, and thank goodness the nurse quickly put the hat over his spiky head.
That's the first time I've ever felt like I would be sick based on something I saw. What a shock.
Yeah, I always thought the vagina was for fun for me. Boy was I a fool. After my kid came out, I knew exactly what it was for. Fun was just a trick.
...creating differentially large disadvantages for their sons, thus potentially reinforcing the development of the gender gap in the next generation.
That was the Coven's evil plan all along, wuzznit?
Dante,
After I became pregnant I knew exactly what that penis was for, anytime it was pointed at me, I ran away screaming. I was a fool to think it was a fun toy! It was a weapon of mass implantation.
No it's not: it's an ugly, gooey mess.
My first reaction, after the dilatin' started and then the pushin' and dilatin' and crownin', was I am NOT supposed to,see my wife this way.
Fools and very young men might think this, but that would require them not listening to currently married older men who tell them otherwise.
...assuming they had any "currently married older men to tell them otherwise" around as role models to begin with.
After I became pregnant I knew exactly what that penis was for, anytime it was pointed at me, I ran away screaming. I was a fool to think it was a fun toy! It was a weapon of mass implantation.
So happiness was not a warm gun after all? Yet you were shot and "blessed" four times. You earned a purple hart.
This problem will solve itself in a few generations as America is taken over by the Evangelicals, the Mormons, the Amish, the Orthodox Jews, and the Muslims, i.e., cultures which are willing to coerce their adherents into fecund marriages that enable their cultures to persist.
Progressivism was fun while it lasted.
Tammy Wynette could not be reached for comment.
@ aberman,
It is the religious that create the new progressives.
People constantly remind me that my children will leave the faith, as if it is a hopeless cause to even bother to raise children within a faith.
Well I do my best to share and teach my faith fully to the extent I have. Yes, they may leave but I gave them something that can go back to if they choose.
I don't care for the idea of other people mocking me for trying though, it's like they can't wait until my children are teenagers so they tall them what I terrible parent I am for teaching them our faith.
I have until they are 13 to teach what I can, if anything as they get older they may appreciate that fact I protected them from the secular world and just allowed them to be children.
"Life lesson for young females, don't hook up with a loser and for gawd's sake don't have children with him."
Can't we have one thread without everybody making fun of Bitchtits? Seriously.
But to return to the topic at hand, I am really enjoying the decline of society in this particular instance. As all these liberated sloots only are interested in men in higher socioeconomic strata, men from good families with education and careers are a much in demand commodity. Supply and demand.
The supply of these little Julia feminist princesses is at an all time high however, allowing them to be treated like shit and disposed of like tissues. Why the hell would any guy mess up such an ideal situation? We can get married (should we so choose) at 45 to a 24 year old and skip that pesky first divorce.
Finding little ways to enjoy the decline is what life is all about.
From a Darwinian perspective, the ideal reproductive strategy for a woman is to have two male partners- one to provide status and material goods, and another to provide the best genes.
Of course, the two men could be the same individual- but that's often not the case.
From a man's Darwinian perspective, serving as the cuckolded provider-man really sucks. Of course, that's always been the case.
Yet where once both mores and the law presented obstacles to women who tried to play their husbands this way, today the law supports a woman who declares "I don't love you anymore .. so I'm leaving (and I'll be taking the house and half your income for the next twenty years"). And there really isn't all that much disapproval either.
Nor does the law do much to make fatherhood attractive, when the only father's right the law indisputably supports is the man's right to pay.
I don't know why it should be a surprise that many men see in marriage a huge potential to entrap them into becoming that ultimate Darwinian loser, the man who must provide for a household from which he has been expelled. And if young men don't aspire to marriage then why would they care if they are attractive as potential husbands?
The traditional role of father and husband has been exploded, and what has replaced it (other than increasing state and social support for single mothers)?
DBQ, you left out the most important part of your story. Was she hot or not?
BTW, my wife does not have any friends because her first husband tried, and mostly succeeded, to have sex with all of them.
> There's no single thing, including simply shacking up for extended periods, that can give a man the same soul-satisfying contentment as marrying and raising a family with a woman you love.
The fact that winning the lottery is a good thing does not imply that one should play the lottery.
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