At a time when we hear constantly about the problem with young men—citing their high jail and homelessness rates, for instance—but less in the way of coherent explanations, I hypothesize:

Could the problem with young men be as simple as money?

Look at young women, and you see encouraging financial trends. They're more likely to go to college than boys (which generally translates to a wage premium), less likely to be unemployed, and even out-earn men in 22 major cities. The increasingly female finfluencer landscape promotes habits like budgeting, saving, and reducing debt.

Young men go into more debt than women, invest more but achieve worse returns, and have even been found to spend more. Their social media feeds more likely feature content on investing and wealth accumulation; one study found they were significantly more likely to have bought crypto than women from online advice.

And in the most toxic place, the manosphere, men are mocked if they aren't super-providers—if they aren't making enough to provide luxury for a nonworking spouse and many children. Meaning that the online world, where alpha males display such behavior, and the real world, where women are catching up with and often even surpassing men, are increasingly out of step.

Social media is often to blame. When it comes to money, perhaps it's that case that in general, it pushes bad content to boys while pushing good advice to girls.