The Silent Crisis of Disconnected and Lonely Young Men

Raising a child takes a village—and some of the villagers must be men.

- Robert D. Putnam and Richard V. Reeves

In the early years of the 20th century, America had a "boy problem." Boys on the street, making trouble. Boys becoming truants. Boys getting caught up in crime. The problem spread across the United States alongside the disruptions of technological change, immigration, and growing socio-economic inequality.

Policymakers stepped in—with universal public schooling, for example. But it was the civic response that was truly extraordinary. In less than a decade, most of today's major child-serving organizations were founded: Big Brothers (1904), the Federated Boys' Clubs (1906), Boy Scouts (1910), Girl Scouts (1912), and 4-H (1912).

Since 2010, suicide rates among young men have risen by a third. The share of college degrees going to men has fallen to 41 percent, lower than the women's share in 1970. One in 10 men aged 20 to 24 is effectively doing nothing—neither enrolled in school nor working. That's twice the rate in 1990.

Today's leaders have been slow to recognize the extent of male troubles, in part because of a fear of being seen as somehow anti-woman. But alarm bells are ringing.

A CRISIS OF CONNECTION

This male malaise is not just about jobs and diplomas. It is also a crisis of connection, as men and boys are increasingly detached from civic, familial, and social life. They are lost, in part because they are lonely: 25 percent of boys and men aged 15 to 34 told Gallup they had experienced loneliness "a lot" on the previous day. One in seven young men reports that he has no close friends. Two-thirds of men under the age of 30 think that "no one cares if men are okay."

Consider the despair implicit in that last statistic.