Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It

by Richard V. Reeves

Children with affluent parents are twice as likely to have a delayed school start as those from a low-income home. There is a similar gap between white and Black children. Boys are more likely to be redshirted than girls, especially by parents who are teachers.6 Children who are young for their school year are also more likely to be held back a year. When these factors are combined, the rate gets quite high. Among summer-born boys with BA-educated parents (the kind of folks who read Outliers), the redshirting rate is 20%, according to an analysis of the 2010/11 data by the Northwestern University economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Stephanie Howard Larson.

I think “male appropriate” is the right way to think about it. The goal is not to make professions like nursing, social work, mental health, or teaching seem like masculine rather than feminine ones, but to emphasize a range of opportunities that they can provide for both men and women. We don’t need to make men feel like being a nurse will somehow bolster their masculinity, just that it will not diminish it.68