Social scientist warns adult men not reaching key milestones is bad for society

One social scientist and author told CNN that he’s worried about the number of men in their 30s and 40s who are not buying homes or starting families.

“Of Boys and Men” author Richard Reeves spoke to CNN host Michael Smerconish about the brewing social dynamic in America where a significant portion of men are not reaching the standards of adulthood that their parents did, including owning a home or having kids.

“It speaks to a change, an important change, which is the fact that these milestones aren‘t just being reached later, but for many people, they‘re not being reached at all,” Reeves told Smerconish, commenting on a recent Wall Street Journal article discussing this trend. 

“And right now it looks like it‘s the economic and social prospects of young men that are the big issue facing us,” he would go on to say.

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Citing the most concerning data he has seen, Reeves said, “Yeah, for me, it‘s the fact that men in their 30s and 40s now, who don‘t have a college degree, half of them don‘t have children in their home.”

Reeves, who is also president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, noted that the new dynamic is that, rather than men just waiting later to reach these milestones, they’re not reaching them at all, and that’s worrying. 

“Taking a bit more time to get educated, take your time to form a family, maybe get yourself financially settled – that‘s arguably a good thing, but that‘s not what‘s happening now. What‘s happening now is that these milestones for many people are just not being reached at all.”

Elsewhere, he said, “Honestly, Michael, I didn‘t used to worry about this delay. I‘m now worried about it because I do think we’re moving from, ‘This is just happening later,’ to, ‘It‘s just not happening.’”

Furthermore, he noted that men aren’t necessarily choosing to forego these achievements, they feel as though they’re unable to reach them. “The data suggests that actually, men in particular, still want to have children, they still want to get married, they still want to form families. It‘s just that, for some reason, they‘re not able to.”

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“It‘s a mixture, as always, of economics and culture. This is partly just, you know, young men in particular feeling like they‘re not doing as well economically as they need to,” Reeves said, adding that the current gender divide in society is adding to this problem.

“A third of men under 30 are not dating. 24% of men still living at home in their 20s, as you just pointed out.”

The expert then pointed out where to start addressing this problem. “We‘ve got to improve the economic prospects for young men – that is, if you‘re going to do one thing. So, we need to have more investments in an education system that works for men,” he said, mentioning promoting vocational training, apprenticeships, and combating flatlining male wages. 

He also offered, “We just need to lower the temperature around some of these cultural issues, some of these political issues that I think have really driven a wedge between many young men and young, young women.”

Reeves pointed to one spot that society has overlooked that has compounded this problem, stating, “we haven‘t created a culture in which it‘s easy enough for men and women to kind of form these families, to buy a home, to start out in life.”