Earlier this week we posted on the End of Men and the Rise of Women trends. The basics behind these are trends are a growing set of data indicating that men are falling behind women in a wide range of well being, educational, and employment measures.
Although not new (the trends have been discussed for many years), new information and analysis on these trends continues to surface. Two recent books cover, in part, these shifts:
Is Marriage for White People: Written by Stanford Law Professor Ralph Richard Banks, the book focuses mostly on the issues around black women being much less likely to marry as white women.
Banks points out that a key reason is the growing educational and employment gender imbalances in the black community.
Simply put, African American women are out performing African American men across the board - especially in education where two African American women graduate from college for every one African American male.
A related side note is Banks, the father of 3 young sons, was so stunned by his research showing the educational challenges of boys that he has decided to write a new book on this topic.
Is Marriage for White People is extremely well written and well worth reading for anyone interested in family related social trends.
Coming Apart - The State of White America, 1960 - 2010: Written by the controversial, conservative sociologist Charles Murray, this book dives deep into the growing social and economic divergence between America's white underclass and its white economic elite.
The book doesn't cover the End of Men specifically, but does present a statistical treasure trove showing that less educated men are increasingly failing economically and socially.
It also discusses the decline in marriage among American whites - and again points to growing gender imbalances favoring women in education and other areas. After finishing this book, I started referring to it as "Is Marriage for Rich White People?"
Coming Apart chronicles a mix of growing problems in America. Many will disagree with Murray's recommendations on how to fix things, but his statistically driven description of the challenges we face are hard to argue with.
Neither book focuses on the End of Men or the Rise of Women. But both present compelling cases that these trends are real.
Today's NY Times has another article related to this topic. It's on data showing that the majority of women under 30 who have children are not married.
It's at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/us/for-women-under-30-most-births-occur-outside-marriage.html?hp
Posted by: Steve King | February 18, 2012 at 08:57 AM
I also heard more and more men are playing the role of stay at home (mom). This is an interesting shift as historically the man was the bread winner. The family unit has changed much over the years and it makes me nervous.
Posted by: ShyEntrepreneur | February 17, 2012 at 02:53 PM