The movement from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge-based one is what’s really at work, Rosin said.

“The manufacturing economy will never operate how it used to, and men are accustomed to operating in a very narrow space,” Rosin said in an interview. “The quality the workplace most values right now, flexibility, is something that women have, and men need to catch up to succeed.”

The August jobs report revealed men’s participation in the workforce to be at the lowest level since 1948, the Atlantic reported. The number of men in the workplace began declining in the 1950s, when women entered the workforce in droves.