Wayward Sons: The Emerging Gender Gap in Labor Markets and Education is a fascinating study by noted MIT economist economist David Autor and MIT PhD student Melanie Wasserman.
They suggest that an emerging economic gender gap favoring women is developing. This gap is being driven by the underperformance of boys and men in school.
Key quote fron the study:
" ... the stagnation of male educational attainment bodes ill for the well-being of recent cohorts or U.S. males, particularly minorities and those from low income households. Less-educated males of recent cohorts are likely to face diminished employment and earnings opportunities and other attendant maladies , including poorer health, high probability of incarceration, and generally lower life satisfaction."
In other words, men and boys are in trouble.
The key chart illustrating this point is below. It shows that women's wages have increased substantially more than men's over the last couple of decades. More importantly, men without college educations have seen their wages fall over this time frame.
Before you send me an email, yes - men still out earn women on average.
But the gap has significantly closed over the last 2 decades and we are forecasting earnings parity between the sexes will occur within the next decade. We also believe women's earnings growth will outperform men past that point and by the 2030 time frame women, on average, will substantially out-earn men.
The study points out that the social and economic costs of the decline of men are substantial. As we wrote in our article Missing the Point on the End of Men, we need to recognize the problems facing boys and men and start fixing them.
Our category on Women has a lot more posts, data and links on both women advancing educationally and economically (which is good), and the decline of boys and men.
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