Are Government Policy and Culture Making Men Weak?

It has long been well-documented how men and male overall well-being is declining in America. Men have been increasingly dropping out of the workforce, dating, school, marriage and family formation, and out of public life in general.

A new article from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) asks who or what is to blame for the increase in male malaise.

They blame a very culpable culprit: Uncle Sam.

A recent Wall Street Journal article asserts the same.

“Blame government, which showers benefits on able-bodied people who don’t work while at the same time subsidizing college degrees that don’t lead to productive employment. The result is millions of idle men and millions of unfilled jobs – what an economist would call a deadweight loss to society.”

The Journal says this has serious implications for family formation. “Single women might commiserate: A good worker, like a good man, can be hard to find these days.”

IFS states that in 1976, just 5% of young men ages 25 to 40 were not in the workforce. That number has more than doubled in 2024. They explain the problem is even worse for full-time employment among men, saying,

“Over the same period, the share of men in this age range not working full-time rose by 46%, such that now more than 1 in 5 men in this age group are not working full-time. In 2024, 3.8 million men ages 25 to 40 were not in the labor force, and a total of 7.8 million were not working full-time.”

This is an extremely troubling cultural and family indicator.

There is a striking difference for men when it comes to educational status. The increase in flight from work is up 79% among college educated men, but it is up a whopping 165% among less-educated men! IFS explains, “A large minority of young men who are not working, or who are working less than full-time, are collecting food or cash from the government.”

This robs young men of their motivation to branch out and fight to make an independent life for themselves, a key motivator that all young men need to earn their place in the world as an able-bodied contributor to society.

Anthropologist David D. Gilmore, in Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity, explains about one of the primary qualities of healthy manhood in society.

“Again and again we find that ‘real’ men are those who give more than they take; they serve others.” They are protectors and providers, not just of themselves, but of others … primarily of a wife and their children.

If a healthy young man is not married, he should put his energy into serving others through hard work and community service, by sacrificing himself through duty in the military, the church, to community volunteering or building a business or institution that creates necessary things and lifts others up.

But when government steps in and does these things for men, males lose their ambitious drive to do hard things, take chances, make their own way in the world and carve out a life for themselves and those who should be able to depend on them.

This motivational robbery is happening to men today on a massive scale. IFS notes that the 2024 Current Population Survey tells us that 31 to 40% of men aged 25-40 who are not employed full-time collected some form of cash or cash-equivalent assistance in the form of unemployment insurance, food stamps, Social Security disability, or Supplemental Security Income in the past year. This is true of a total of nearly 4 million men in America.

You cannot build a strong country and new, healthy families with facts like this.

Culture is to Blame, Too

IFS reports family break-down, video games, porn and cultural messaging are also to blame. Young men who grow up in a divorced or cohabiting family are 36% less likely to hold down a full-time in their mid-twenties compared to their peers in intact, healthy families.

Consumer culture is to blame as well. IFS founder Brad Wilcox explains in The American Conservative:

What is more, Princeton economist Mark Aguiar and colleagues document that increased hours of screentime, primarily video games and porn, account for nearly half of the decline in hours of paid work for men in their twenties from 2004 to 2017.

Consider as well, a culture that is regularly telling young men their masculine energy is a “toxic” problem and that it serves society best by being kept in hiding. This has certainly led to the real cancer affecting masculinity today: passivity. Manhood must be publicly active. If it is not demonstrated in making life better, safer and more productive for others, authentic manhood does not exist.

If we hope to build a stronger nation and build new, thriving families, we must solve the motivation and employment problem among men. This is done by lifting boys and young men up, encouraging them to appreciate their strength and natural abilities, helping them find meaningful, contributory and ennobling employment in our society.

Boys grow into good men by working hard, learning essential skills, serving others and gaining a sense of significance and satisfaction in gainful employment that leads to a better future for them and all those around them.

Anything that prevents this is a serious detriment to society and the family.

Image from Shutterstock.