In a recent article from Bloomberg titled “Men Dropping Out of the Workforce Could Be Progress,” Allison Schrager attempts to understand and then reconcile the genuine problem of a growing number of prime working-age men, ages 25 to 54, choosing not to work. Schrager accurately observes that this trend of men dropping out of the workforce is not simply a recent phenomenon due to the COVID pandemic. So why is it happening?

She notes that men quitting has been happening over the last 50 years, conceding that the answer must be structural. She writes: “The US Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey asked non-working men last year why they were not looking for work, and more than a third claimed the mysterious ‘other’ reason. For women, ‘family responsibilities’ or ‘can’t arrange child care’ was selected by 42%.”

Further stating the obvious, Schrager says that fewer men working is not good for the economy because it means that fewer people are working, which results in less economic growth. “It’s also bad for society, since most people need to have a purpose and to feel productive,” she says, “and a paying job is the most common way of accomplishing that.”

She lists several more factors that include modern education being more geared for girls than boys, the opioid epidemic directly affecting more men than women, a government welfare system that effectively allows for people to survive and not work, and an increasing number of women earning enough money to provide for the whole household. Schrager wonders if the primary cause for men not working is that “an economy that offers more opportunities to everyone may just mean fewer men working than we’ve seen in the past.”

So, what’s missing from this analysis? In a word, feminism. Over the last several decades, boys and men growing up in the U.S. have been receiving a steady message of negativity regarding masculinity. They are told it is “toxic,” and in order to become “good,” they must effectively feminize. Feminism’s confusing message of demand for both equality and special treatment — combined with its depiction of men as little other than hormone-driven bumbling idiots while at the same time depicting women as perpetual victims of a culture rife with misogyny thanks to a supposed ubiquitous “patriarchy” — has left a lot of men in a state of self-loathing confusion.

Missing strong fathers, many young men lack self-confidence borne out of an identity that recognizes and embraces a heroic yet grounded masculinity. Lacking a genuine masculine identity, they are robbed of a sense of self-worth, out of which directional vocational purpose arises. As a result, an increasing number of these men are quitting working because they are effectively quitting life.

In short, the root of the problem boils down to our society’s eschewing gender roles — what it means for a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman. Loss of these normative social expectations and guidelines leads to confusion and ultimately despair.