Men’s Falling Incomes Linked to Single Parents

Does “the end of men” begin 

in fatherless homes?

Carolyn Moynihan

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...

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Read more: www.mercatornet.com

Study of Men’s Falling Income Cites Single Parents

By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

The decline of two-parent households may be a significant reason for the divergent fortunes of male workers, whose earnings generally declined in recent decades, and female workers, whose earnings generally increased, a prominent labor economist argues in a new survey of existing research.




David H. Autor, a professor at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology, says that the difference between men and women, at least in part, may have roots in childhood. 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 center-left policy research organization.

In this telling, the 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 some women are choosing to raise children by themselves, in turn often producing sons who are less successful and attractive as partners.

“A vicious cycle may ensue,” wrote Professor 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.”

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Read more: www.nytimes.com