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Disconnected: Educational Disparities, Gender, Self-Esteem and Social Media
If you’re reading the news, listening to podcasts or watching any panel shows on television, you may have noticed people in America are trying to understand why young men are struggling, specifically in education and in terms of mental health.
In 1972, when Congress passed Title IX to tackle gender equity in education, men were 13 percentage points more likely to hold bachelor’s degrees than women; today women are 15 points more likely to do so than men. The gender equity divide has flipped. Within the next few years, American college graduates will be one-third male. The decline has to do with the rising expectation that female American teenagers will now attend college as well as the fact that our educational system, family dynamics and wider society is not adequately preparing boys to succeed at school. The median real hourly wage for working men is lower today than it was in the 1970s. Men account for almost three out of four “deaths of despair,” from overdose or suicide.
These facts obviously do not paint the whole picture. The pay gap between male and female workers remains a significant problem. As more women enter a given field, the median wage tends to decrease. Men without college degrees are far more likely to earn a decent living than women without college degrees.
