America’s Young Men Are Falling Even Further Behind
In Spanish, parents call it encaminado: making sure your children are on the path to an independent adulthood.
Out of Dan and Joana Moreno’s four grown children, only their daughter is encaminada. She recently graduated from business school and got engaged. The Morenos’ three adult sons are still sleeping in their Miami childhood bedrooms. The younger two dropped out of college, and the oldest never went. All three are single. Their only work experience is with the family business.
“Something has gone amiss here,” says their father, Dan, who owns the repair chain Flamingo Appliance Service. “We love them, we love having them around, but that’s not how you build a life.”
The life trajectories of America’s sons and daughters are diverging.
Presented with a more-equal playing field, young women are seizing the opportunities in front of them, while young men are floundering. The phenomenon has developed over the past decade, but was supercharged by the pandemic, which derailed careers, schooling and isolated friends and families. The result has big implications for the economy.
