For the better part of a decade, a familiar narrative has taken hold: Young men are adrift—detached from work, disconnected from relationships, and increasingly uninterested in the responsibilities of adulthood.
It is a compelling story. It is also incomplete.
Data from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), based on a survey of men aged 18 to 29, tells a far more complicated and revealing story: Young men are not rejecting responsibility. They are not abandoning the idea of adulthood. If anything, they are holding onto it.
What they are losing is the ability to reach it.
The survey’s findings are striking. Large majorities still aspire to marriage and fatherhood. They define manhood in traditional terms: responsibility, sacrifice, and the capacity to provide for others.
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