The Male Divide

To some degree, gender has long been a ready-made solution for dividing labor. There is little debate, for example, that men and women have unique biological expressions that dictate what they can do physically. But whether men and women are innately suited to certain roles remains quite controversial. Some evolutionary psychologists argue that the psyches of men and women have genetically adapted in response to differing challenges. Social role theorists, on the other hand, contend that personality differences between the genders emerge in response to social, economic, and ecological conditions. This means if women take part in childcare, they are more likely to cultivate a caring disposition, but it doesn’t mean they are born caregivers. Likewise, when men do the caregiving, they become more caring. It’s the classic nature-versus-nurture debate.

Regardless of whether male and female dispositions come pre-programmed, both sexes have a number of shared capacities as humans: the ability to rapidly adapt, to cooperate, to learn social norms, and to create cultures that reinforce those norms. Gender is one of the first social categories babies internalize, usually by age two. As children grow older, they learn that behaviors that fit these gender roles are rewarded and nonconformity is punished. So they adapt to meet expectations. “Starting very early, genderization sets the trajectory for what in 20 years the labor market is going to look like,” Ragonese says. And despite advances in women’s rights, over the last 50 years culture has become increasingly genderized, experts say. 

As University of Melbourne professor Cordelia Fine, who studies gender in the workplace, writes in Patriarchy Inc: What We Get Wrong About Gender Equality—And Why Men Still Win at Work, hyper-genderized divisions of labor may have made sense in particular contexts: societies with high fertility, economies abundant in roles that require physical strength, and cultures that place low value on autonomy. But in a post-industrial, AI-powered global era, the skills most needed are changing. According to an American Institute of Boys and Men analysis of US labor statistics, over the decade from 2023 through 2033 there will be half a million more new job openings in HEAL than in STEM. Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs have been on a steady decline for the last half a century. The in-demand skill of the day is relational competence, rather than brute strength.  

“Men need gender equality just as much as gender equality needs men.”

Those who track gender ideologies find that often economic dynamics change first, followed by culture. This has put men in a bind. There are abundant health and education jobs open, but socially men may be punished for straying from more “masculine” career paths. “How can the modern man meet the shifting demands and roles happening in society?” asks Ariel Binder, a research fellow at the American Institute for Boys and Men.

*****

As it did for Candelaria, learning may offer a path to possibility. But something curious has been occurring as women integrate into educational and professional settings, and it may help to explain the weakening graduation and employment rates for men. 

In 2010, sociologist Anne Lincoln published a study examining the changing gender dynamics of the veterinary field. In 1969, men represented 89 percent of veterinary students. By 1987, there was a fifty-fifty split between the sexes. And in 2009, she reported that less than a quarter of veterinary students were male. (Fast-forward to 2024 and that number had plummeted to anywhere from 12 to 17 percent.) While some point to the rising cost of tuition to explain the drop in enrollment, Lincoln’s research found that men and women were equally affected by the financial burden. “There was really only one variable where I found an effect, and that was the proportion of women already enrolled in vet med schools,” Lincoln wrote. 

If, as some argue, certain professions have become socially coded as feminine, so too has education as a whole, which has diminished the perceived value of learning. In 1972, the year Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination, went into effect, men claimed 56 percent of all bachelor’s degrees. Now, the tables have turned, with women earning around 58 percent of four-year degrees. Between 2010 and 2021, the number of Americans attending college fell, with men accounting for the majority of that drop. To be sure, there are many factors calling into question the value of higher education, but the impacts of forgoing school remain.

“Who is advantaged and disadvantaged by gender beliefs is a complicated story.”

Trade schools and technical training have also proved to be effective in drawing men back into the workforce. But the pay for those roles has stagnated, creating an increasingly precarious situation. Men facing financial insecurity are 16 times more likely to experience suicidal ideation, according to an Equimundo survey. Those from the poorest zip codes are most susceptible to opting out of school. “Who is advantaged and disadvantaged by gender beliefs is a complicated story,” says Fine. “It’s tricky to talk about.” 

Tricky indeed, affirms Korn Ferry’s president of global healthcare services Greg Button, pointing to gender dynamics in healthcare as an example. While the majority of nurses, techs, and administration workers are women, top leadership is almost exclusively men. “We have such a female-dominated industry, the conversation has been that we should have females at the top,” Button says. “It hasn’t been a conversation of how do we even this out on all levels.” Button also says there’s a massive shortage of healthcare workers, and that it will only worsen as the population ages—unless recruiters can expand their net. And as roles become more gender balanced, Fine says, they are more likely to be fairly compensated rather than over- or undervalued. Or as Ragonese from Equimundo points out: “Men need gender equality just as much as gender equality needs men.”