Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth, for the Colson Center on Johnstone Street. A few weeks ago, a New York Times op-ed piece declared America has a masculinity crisis.
Well, today on Breakpoint, Glenn Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family, discusses the state of young men and American culture and notes that there's actually some good news. Here's Glenn Stanton. Scott Galloway, an NYU business prof and manhood guru on the left, recently told Ross Duthat on his Interesting Times podcast, quote, I worry that we're evolving a new species of asocial. asexual males. Galloway is not alone in his concern.
It is well established that men are floundering today like never before. But is this picture wholly negative? The Institute for Family Studies has released the second part of their essential two-part series taking inventory of how young men are doing today. They note, quote, we find that a large majority of men, 73%, believe that in recent decades it has become harder to know what it is to be a man, end quote. Working from a nationally representative YouGov sample of 2,000 young men.
Ages 18 to 29, IFS explains their aim was: quote, to allow young men to express themselves on a range of personal issues. End quote. Part one of this report released last March. found that a notable majority of young men today desire to be married and to be fathers, with 68% and 62% reporting this longing respectively. Encouragingly, young men feel that both are important milestones in becoming good men.
Yet, 21% of men are unsure they want to marry, but only 10% of young men today currently express no interest in either whatsoever. Sadly, 59% of young men are not presently in a romantic relationship. This means matchmakers need to get busy helping change this because marriage and the generation of babies do not happen unless boy meets girl. Young men are not their parents' self-absorbed basement dwellers. A full 89% agreed that being a young man involved strength, responsibility, and leadership.
And just fewer at 85% believe being a man requires a willingness to sacrifice for others. IFS found two-thirds of young men view financial independence from their parents and being able to provide for others as either extremely or very important to becoming an adult. They see this as a fundamental prerequisite to becoming the good husband and father that most of them aspire to be. Nor are these young men slackers. Young men today report relatively high levels of satisfaction with the work that they do.
A full 42% said they are either very satisfied at work. while another 46% say they are somewhat satisfied. Only 12% said they were very or somewhat dissatisfied with the work that they do.
Now, part two of this report, released in early August, looks at important social aspects of contemporary manhood and hopefully appraises young men as what they called demoralized but not defeated. This demoralization is not insignificant, to be sure. Nearly half of young men today, at 43%, agreed that I am inclined to think that I am a failure. This is certainly not good news, but it feels that they are not living up to their own reasonable expectations. Most troubling, a quarter of men today say they feel lonely all or most of the time.
And 25% feel isolated. Only 48% say they feel loved or wanted by others. All or most of the time, and only 20% feel this way, never. or not often. Not surprisingly, young men who work and or go to school are much less likely to feel isolated and lonely, with work providing greater social connection and satisfaction over school.
More interestingly, IFS scholars found marriage and fatherhood are not a ball and chain for men. Men who are married with children have richer and more rewarding social connections. Young married dads are most likely to say they have never or seldom felt lonely in the past 30 days at 68%, while husbands without kids yet were the second highest at 60%. Being secular, out of school, and not working had greater association with being lonely. all or most of the time in the last 30 days at 29% for no faith.
and no school, and 32% for those who were unemployed. Only 13% of married dads felt lonely that often, with marriage and fatherhood cutting such feelings by more than half. Married fathers among this 18 to 29 year old age group were also most likely to report having a larger number of close friends. Those with strong faith and those with at least a bachelor's degree were the runners up in the friend race behind married dads. 42% of young men in the survey reported two or fewer close friends.
Yet, 31% of husbands and 36% of fathers reported this low number of friends. Marriage and fatherhood give men real essential purpose, connecting them to a larger and more dynamic network of rewarding and purposeful relationships. This is another reason we must work to connect more men to wives and children. That was Glenn Stanton, Director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus on the Family. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint.
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