Solving the “Crisis of Men” Requires Tackling Inequality – Jacobin

 

Report on Socio-Economic Disparities and Their Impact on Male Well-being in the United States

Introduction: A Sustainable Development Goal Perspective on the “Crisis of Men”

An analysis of socio-economic indicators reveals significant challenges to the well-being of men in the United States. These challenges, often framed as a “crisis of men,” are more accurately understood as consequences of systemic inequality, which directly impedes progress on multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This report reframes the issue away from a gender-based conflict and toward an examination of class-based disparities that affect both men and women, albeit in different ways. The observed trends in male well-being, particularly concerning health and economic stability, highlight critical failures in achieving core SDG targets.

• SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being): Rising fatality rates from suicide and opioid overdoses among men signal a severe public health issue.
• SDG 5 (Gender Equality): The narrative of a “battle of the sexes” is misleading; data indicates that women’s gains in certain areas are often a response to persistent economic disadvantages, demonstrating that true gender equality has not been achieved.
• SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities): The primary driver of the challenges faced by working-class men is the dramatic growth in economic inequality, which has differential impacts based on gender.

Analysis of Disparities in Education and Economic Opportunity

Educational Attainment and SDG 4 (Quality Education)

Data on educational performance indicates a gender gap favoring girls and women. However, focusing on gender alone obscures the more significant influence of economic class, a critical factor in achieving SDG 4 (Quality Education) for all.

• In K-12 schooling, boys constitute a majority of students in the bottom half of the GPA distribution, with the disparity being most pronounced in low-income school districts.
• In higher education, men exhibit lower enrollment and completion rates than women.
• Conversely, high-income school districts sometimes show higher graduation rates for boys, and elite universities appear to adjust admissions to maintain gender balance, suggesting that class, not gender, is the primary determinant of educational success.

These findings indicate that efforts to achieve inclusive and equitable education must prioritize addressing socio-economic barriers, which disproportionately affect male students in lower-income brackets.

Labor Market Dynamics, SDG 5 (Gender Equality), and SDG 8 (Decent Work)

Women’s higher educational attainment is largely a strategic necessity to counteract systemic disadvantages in the labor market. This reality underscores the incomplete progress toward SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).

• Persistent Wage Gap: Women, on average, must achieve higher educational qualifications than men to approach similar earning levels. The gender wage gap remains consistent across various levels of education and training.
• The Motherhood Penalty: The pay gap between mothers and fathers is significantly wider than the average gap between men and women, indicating a structural barrier to economic equality for women with children.
• Economic Precarity: Women continue to experience higher rates of poverty than men.

Therefore, women’s academic outperformance is not a sign of “winning” a gender war but a compensatory mechanism for losing in an inequitable labor market. This context is essential for understanding that the struggles of working-class men and women stem from a shared vulnerability to economic exploitation, not from competition with each other.

The Central Role of Economic Inequality (SDG 10)

Evidence of a Widening Class Divide

The primary factor eroding the well-being of the majority of men is the escalating concentration of wealth and income, a direct contradiction of the aims of SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities).

1. Declining Labor Share of Income: The portion of national income going to labor has fallen from approximately 63% in the post-war era to around 57%, redirecting trillions of dollars from workers to capital owners. This undermines progress toward shared prosperity as outlined in SDG 8.
2. Extreme Wealth Concentration: Between 2008 and 2023, the disposable personal income of the top 0.01% of earners grew by 43.4%, a rate more than three times that for individuals in the middle of the income distribution.
3. Policy Impact: Pandemic-era policies, such as expanded child tax credits and unemployment benefits, temporarily reversed this trend, demonstrating that policy interventions can effectively reduce inequality. The subsequent expiration of these policies has allowed the aggressive reconcentration of income to resume.

Impact on Health and Well-being (SDG 3)

The most devastating consequence of rising economic inequality is its impact on life expectancy, creating a health gap that far exceeds gender-based differences and represents a profound failure to achieve SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being).

• The life expectancy gap between rich and poor individuals has roughly doubled since the mid-20th century.
• For cohorts born in 1960, men at the bottom of the income scale are projected to see no gains in life expectancy, while women at the bottom are expected to die younger than previous poor cohorts.
• While women generally live longer than men within similar income groups, the gradient of life expectancy across the income spectrum is steeper for men. This suggests that in the absence of economic resources, maleness acts as an accelerant for the health injuries of class.

The Proliferation of Precarity and its Impact on Decent Work (SDG 8)

The structure of the modern economy has imposed precarious and insecure working conditions, once disproportionately assigned to women and minorities, upon a larger segment of the male workforce. This trend represents a systemic degradation of labor standards and a retreat from the principles of SDG 8 (Decent Work).

The feeling of being “feminized” expressed by some men can be understood as an economic reality: the erosion of stable, well-compensated employment that once supported a “breadwinner” model. The problem is not the imposition of a female status but the expansion of an exploitative labor model that treats all workers as expendable. This includes the phenomenon of “credential creep,” where employers demand increasingly costly qualifications for entry-level positions without providing on-the-job career progression, shifting the costs of training onto workers and making sustainable livelihoods harder to achieve for everyone.

Policy Recommendations for Achieving Sustainable Development Goals

Addressing the challenges facing working-class men requires a policy agenda focused on tackling the root cause: systemic inequality. The following recommendations are aligned with achieving a broad range of SDGs and would benefit both men and women by fostering shared prosperity.

1. Promote Progressive Taxation: Implement steeper marginal tax rates on the highest incomes to reduce extreme income concentration, directly advancing SDG 10.
2. Strengthen the Social Safety Net and Public Services: Bolster programs like unemployment insurance and create public job programs to provide economic security, contributing to SDG 1 (No Poverty) and SDG 8.
3. Enhance Worker Bargaining Power: Protect and expand the rights of unions to engage in collective action to raise labor’s share of national income, a key component of SDG 8.
4. Improve Housing Affordability: Invest in affordable housing in areas with strong labor markets to ensure workers can access economic opportunities, supporting the objectives of SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities).

A universal approach that reduces class disparities is the only effective path forward. Shared gains across gender lines are not only more equitable but also more sustainable, as historical precedent shows that leaving any group in a degraded economic status ultimately threatens the security of all.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Goals in the Article

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

The article discusses several interconnected social and economic issues in the United States that are directly relevant to the following Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being: The article highlights critical health crises, including rising fatality rates from suicide and opioid overdoses, and significant disparities in life expectancy based on economic class.
• SDG 4: Quality Education: The text analyzes gender disparities in educational achievement, from high school GPA distributions to college enrollment and completion rates, linking these trends to economic factors.
• SDG 5: Gender Equality: A central theme of the article is the analysis of gender dynamics, including the gender wage gap, the “motherhood penalty,” unequal distribution of domestic labor, and how economic precarity affects men and women differently.
• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth: The article addresses issues of stagnant wages, falling labor-force participation, the rise of precarious work, and the declining share of national income going to labor, all of which relate to the quality and availability of decent work.
• SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities: This is the core focus of the article, which argues that the “crisis of men” is a symptom of a wider class war. It provides extensive evidence of widening income inequality and its devastating impact on outcomes like life expectancy, dwarfing gender-based gaps.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

Based on the issues discussed, several specific SDG targets can be identified:

1. SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

   • Target 3.4: “By 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.” This target is relevant due to the article’s focus on the “devastatingly” high fatality rates from suicide and opioid overdoses, which it calls a “convincing indicator of real pain.”

2. SDG 4: Quality Education

   • Target 4.3: “By 2030, ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.” The article directly addresses this by noting that “men are less likely than women to enroll in college, and among those who do give college a try, men are less likely to complete a degree.”
   • Target 4.5: “By 2030, eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education…” This is highlighted by the data showing that in high school, boys “outnumber girls two to one” in the bottom tenth of the GPA distribution, while girls have a “two-to-one advantage” in the top tenth.

3. SDG 5: Gender Equality

   • Target 5.1: “End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere.” The article points to ongoing economic discrimination, stating that “when we compare like to like, women earn roughly 25 percent less than men” and that the “pay gap between mothers and fathers is markedly wider.”
   • Target 5.4: “Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work…” This is addressed by the statement that women “still do more unpaid domestic labor on men’s behalf than men do for women.”

4. SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

   • Target 8.5: “By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men… and equal pay for work of equal value.” The article’s discussion of “falling prime-age labor-force participation rates, stagnant wages,” the gender wage gap, and the growth of “precarious, dead-end” jobs directly relates to the failure to achieve decent work for all.

5. SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

   • Target 10.1: “By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average.” The article directly contrasts this goal with reality, noting that from 2008 to 2023, the income of the top 0.01% “swelled 43.4 percent,” which is “more than three times the growth rate in income for people in the middle of the distribution.”
   • Target 10.2: “By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of… sex… or economic or other status.” The article’s main thesis is that working-class men and women are being economically excluded by the “superrich,” leading to crises in health, education, and well-being.
   • Target 10.4: “Adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality.” The article explicitly advocates for such policies, including a “strong social safety net,” “more steeply progressive taxes,” and measures to raise “labor’s share of pretax income.”

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

Yes, the article provides numerous specific data points and metrics that can serve as indicators to measure progress:

1. For SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being)

   • Suicide fatality rate, disaggregated by gender: The article states men “make up roughly 80 percent of suicide deaths.”
   • Drug overdose death rate, disaggregated by gender: It mentions men account for “70 percent of opioid overdose deaths.”
   • Life expectancy, disaggregated by income/class and gender: The article details the widening class gap in life expectancy, noting that for the 1960 cohort, men at the bottom are “not expected to have gained anything” in life expectancy, while women at the bottom are “expected to die younger.”

2. For SDG 4 (Quality Education)

   • Distribution of students by GPA and gender: The statistic that boys make up a majority in the bottom half of the GPA distribution and girls in the top half.
   • Tertiary education enrollment and completion rates, by gender: The observation that “men are less likely than women to enroll in college” and “less likely to complete a degree.”

3. For SDG 5 (Gender Equality)

   • Gender pay gap: The article quantifies this, stating “women earn roughly 25 percent less than men.”
   • Parental pay gap: The indicator is the difference in pay between mothers and fathers, which is “markedly wider than the overall average pay gap.”

4. For SDG 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth)

   • Labor share of national income: The article specifies this has “plummeted” from around “63 percent” to “somewhere around 57 percent.”
   • Prime-age labor-force participation rate: Mentioned as a “troubling trend line” that is “falling” for men.
   • Wage growth: The article refers to “stagnant wages (despite growing national income).”

5. For SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities)

   • Income growth rate by percentile: The article compares the “43.4 percent” income surge for the top 0.01% with the much lower growth for the middle of the distribution.
   • Income share of the top percentiles: The concentration of income growth at the “tip-top” is a key indicator of rising inequality.

4. Summary of Findings

SDGs	Targets	Indicators Identified in the Article
SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being	3.4: Reduce premature mortality and promote mental health.	Suicide fatality rate by gender (men: ~80%). Opioid overdose death rate by gender (men: ~70%). Life expectancy gap between high-income and low-income individuals.
SDG 4: Quality Education	4.3 & 4.5: Ensure equal access to tertiary education and eliminate gender disparities in education.	High school GPA distribution by gender. College enrollment and completion rates by gender. High school graduation rates by gender and income level of school district.
SDG 5: Gender Equality	5.1 & 5.4: End economic discrimination and value unpaid domestic work.	Gender wage gap (~25%). Pay gap between mothers and fathers. Proportion of unpaid domestic labor performed by women versus men.
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth	8.5: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all.	Labor’s share of national income (fallen from ~63% to ~57%). Prime-age labor-force participation rates. Stagnant wage levels.
SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities	10.1 & 10.4: Sustain income growth for the bottom 40% and adopt policies for greater equality.	Income growth rate by income percentile (e.g., top 0.01% vs. bottom 50%). Concentration of disposable personal income at the top. Advocacy for progressive taxation and social safety nets.

Source: jacobin.com