A column in the Washington Post last week sounded the alarm about the rapid decline in the past 40 years of the percentage of girls saying they hoped to marry. The percentage of boys planning on marriage was basically unchanged.
From 1993, the numbers for women dropped from about 80 percent to about 60 percent. Boys are at about 70 percent. The article basically said that the "war on boys," whatever that means, is also a war on girls, who will eventually find that the raw number of acceptable or suitable mates prohibits many from marrying.
Political views of boys remain relatively unchanged while girls are now at 40 percent identifying as liberal or progressive. I had read some coverage claiming that young males are an increasing problem, but their views are basically the same as always.
It all adds up to some discomforting new realities in dating and marriage and (potentially) having babies. I suppose some of the mismatch can be solved by non-college women marrying non-college men, but even non-college women are a bit put off by the lack of earning power and culture of their counterparts.
It feels weird even to think about marriage and relationships this way, as if individuals are swept away by massive demographic shifts, but even weirder is to subtly blame young women for the problem.
No reasonable person can wish for girls to somehow regress and give up all the hard-won educational and economic and cultural gains of the past 50 years or so. What society needs to do is find ways to elevate the socio-economic status and accomplishments of males.
My sense is that, right now, there is a lot of despair and self-pity among young men. Past performance, it turns out, is no guarantee of future performance, particularly for males.
I believe in the value of education, from paying attention to current events and history to facility in reading and writing, but I also can value non-classroom skills, from trades to all sorts of essential services that society needs to thrive. Everyone should be able to find their niche, so to speak, and just as many marriages once were fine despite the males possessing the education and jobs and status, we likely will see the reverse of that. There is no logical reason that wives can't be the top earners, with higher education.
But that flipped status will demand that males give up on the sense of being entitled to more. That will not be quick and easy, as any number of young Republican males demonstrate.
Biology cannot be denied, of course, so there will always be women who desire to have babies. Modern life means that those mothers don't necessarily need a male to provide economic and emotional security and support. They may just need sperm donors.
There used to be a lot of sci-fi books that were built on the idea that society only needs so many males to maintain the population. If I were a young male, I would at least have to consider going to college and doing all I could to be a "good catch."
It's simple supply and demand, at a basic level.
In sports, the goal is not to bring other teams down to a lower level to guarantee more success. Athletic teams strive to improve, to become more competitive, to analyze what is missing and provide fixes.
That's a truth a high school graduate can grasp.
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