We have robbed working class men of their role as providers for the family
by Belinda Brown, TCW:
From early years right through to university boys are underachieving in education compared to girls. While they started trailing girls as early as the 1980s, the scale of the problem and its implications have been getting progressively worse. There used to be sources of skilled and unskilled employment for less educated men to turn to, but these are less likely to be available. Even when it comes to apprenticeships, young women are outstripping men.
Education is almost the only route to all socially valued resources – employment, health, housing and a family life, so the implications of educational disadvantage are extremely serious for young men. Unfortunately, we live in a society where men are regarded second class citizens so their well-being is in itself never going to be regarded as a serious cause for concern.
However, the docile masses do nonetheless profess to be interested in ‘social’ inequality. If we want to address this, male disadvantage has to take centre stage.
The high demand for soft, people-oriented skills, such as caring and the service industry, plus flexible employment, combined with our various safety nets means that women have many routes to financial independence. Given the choice of pairing up with an under-employed male, mothers prefer to go it alone. Disadvantaged males may be less likely to marry, but they may be more likely to have children, children who they don’t support.
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