The unique characteristics of my native Pennsylvania always fill me with pride and nostalgia. Modest houses—built and repaired by Grandpaps with rough hands and equipped with bare showers in the cellars and driveways that lead into basement garages—line the hills surrounding Pittsburgh. Throughout the state, visible disrepair and aging distinguish the towns that recovered from the closings of steel mills, mines and factories from the ones that didn’t.

But as time stood still in such communities, the drugs and disability came, and the men of steel were left behind.

My essay “Men Without Meaning: The Harmful Effects of Expressive Individualism” explores the ways men and boys are struggling to flourish in America, as children, students, workers and fathers. Much of the story, particularly the rise of crime and drug use and how listless men, who in another era would have gone into manufacturing, is familiar to those of us from PA.

The primary driver of this phenomenon, as demonstrated by Warren Farrell and John Gray in “The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It,” is dad deprivation. Because of divorce and parents never marrying, “only about half of children will spend the duration of their childhood with both of their biological parents.” Absent fathers are particularly detrimental to boys, who miss a model of what it means to be a good man.

>>> Men Without Meaning: The Harmful Effects of Expressive Individualism

Such boys are more likely to die by suicide, to have issues with drugs, and to commit violent crimes, among other things. Strikingly, young men without both parents are more likely to go to prison than graduate from college, according to “Get Married” by Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia.

The opioid epidemic, which resulted in a 356% per capita increase in the issuance of prescription opioids from 1999 to 2015, has been particularly devastating for young men. From January 2021 to April 2022, men made up 67.7% of opioid deaths in Pittsburgh; the majority of overdoses in Pennsylvania in 2017 were of men between 25 and 34 years old.

Startlingly, the second leading cause of death for men under 45 in the United States is suicide. In Allegheny County in 2018, “males were over 3 times more likely to die by suicide than females.”

Simultaneous shifts in schooling and the economy also contribute to the struggle of men and boys. On average, boys are falling behind their female counterparts academically, especially in reading and verbal skills.

Brookings Institution fellow Richard Reeves noted that such skills strongly predict college-going rates. In 2018-19, “about 74 men received a bachelor’s degree for every 100 women,” and when it comes to associate or master’s degrees, the proportions skew even more favorably toward women.

Opportunities for those who prefer physical labor (often men) have diminished in favor of office work. The global knowledge economy disproportionately affected select areas of the country, including the depressed steel towns of Appalachia that are now sometimes “job deserts” lacking growth. From 1973 to 2015, the “real hourly earnings for the typical 25-54 year-old man with only a high school degree declined by 18.2 percent.”

Many such men are so dispirited that they have left the workforce entirely. In Allegheny County, approximately 35% of men ages 25 to 64 are not employed or in the workforce.

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Disengaged men frequently live with a family member who provides most of the household income or rely on disability. In 2015, over 25% of White males and 40% of Black males ages 25 to 34 lived with at least one parent.

Overall, the “most commonly reported disabilities were ‘difficulty walking or climbing stairs’ and ‘difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions’” as those who are “functionally” disabled qualify for payments. The male disability rate in Pittsburgh is 8.5% to 13.2%; in the surrounding regions, it’s 17.6% to 32%.

Cultural decay, which is affecting many communities in Pennsylvania and around the nation, is frequently tied to the state of men. Our boys are struggling at every stage of life, from family decline to education policies, technologies and economic shifts.

This is not just a material crisis but a spiritual one. What truly makes Pennsylvania’s men of steel is their grit, devotion, and sense of purpose. That is what is most important to protect and preserve, and it is found in dignified work and devotion to God, family and country.