{"id":606335,"date":"2026-05-23T01:45:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T01:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=606335"},"modified":"2026-05-23T01:45:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T01:45:00","slug":"no-wonder-men-are-opting-out-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buglecall.org\/?p=606335","title":{"rendered":"No Wonder Men Are Opting Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

No Wonder Men Are Opting Out<\/span><\/p>\n

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Authored by Bettina Arndt via DailySceptic.org,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The warning signs have been there for decades. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in 1983, American author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a powerful\u00a0book<\/a>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 arguing that a male revolt was underway. Since the 1950s, she suggested, men had begun rebelling against the breadwinner ethic, inspired by\u00a0Playboy\u00a0<\/em>culture, the counterculture and a desire for personal freedom. They were rejecting the cultural ideology that had shamed them into tying the knot and becoming a good provider, lest they be seen as immature, irresponsible and less than a real man.<\/p>\n

Ehrenreich understood that marriage was the mechanism by which society harnessed male productivity. Remove the shame and the yoke comes off.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Forty years on, the yoke has disappeared.<\/strong> In April 2026, the American male labour force participation rate\u00a0hit<\/a>\u00a0its lowest level since records began in the 1940s, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. One in three American men \u2014 roughly 33% \u2014 were not working or actively looking for work. The overall male participation rate for men aged 16 and over stood at just 67%, down from 73.5% two decades ago and from 87% in the postwar years when Ehrenreich\u2019s story begins.<\/p>\n

The trend is not confined to America. Similar declines \u2014 though less dramatic than in the United States \u2014 have occurred in the UK, Australia and Canada.<\/p>\n

The marriage collapse runs in lockstep with the workforce data. According to US Census Bureau\u00a0data<\/a>, married-couple households made up 71% of all US households in 1970; today it\u2019s just 47%. As University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox documents in his 2024\u00a0book<\/a>\u00a0Get Married<\/em>, the marriage rate has fallen 65% in the last half century.<\/p>\n

Ehrenreich had made the argument that marriage and productivity were inseparable \u2014 that the same mechanism which got men to the altar got them to work. The data suggest she was right.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What Ehrenreich did not fully reckon with \u2014 and could not have foreseen in 1983 \u2014 was that the inducements for tying the knot would collapse. The shame mechanism has disappeared, yes. But the incentive has simultaneously imploded. The product on offer has changed beyond recognition. If you want to understand why men are voting with their feet, you need to look not just at what marriage now costs them \u2014 and the costs are severe \u2014 but at what it delivers. Increasingly, what it delivers is a pretty dud deal.<\/p>\n

The modern woman: a prospectus:<\/strong><\/p>\n