Our recent recession has significantly impacted men. Many of the industries hit the hardest have been male-dominated industries (construction, financial services, automobile), which resulted in about 75% of the job losses being experienced by men. In November 2009, 19.4 percent of all men in their prime working years (25 to 54) were not working (Peck, 2010).We have not seen the fallout of this staggering number, yet history tells us that higher rates of male unemployment correlate directly to higher incidence of spousal abuse, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicide. There are likely to be significant societal changes that will last for many years.

The national divorce rate fell slightly in 2008, which is not surprising because divorce is costly. According to W. Bradford Wilcox, the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the gender imbalance of job losses in this recession is particularly noteworthy. When combined with the depth and duration of the jobs crises, this poses a profound challenge to marriage, especially in lower-income communities. He writes, “If men can’t make a contribution financially, they don’t have much to offer.” Wilcox believes that over the next few years, we may see a long wave of divorces, putting a large number of men back into single-adulthood. The social implications are profound (Peck, 2010).

Larry

We’d like to tell you the story of Larry, whom one of us knows. Larry lost his job of 18 years in April of 2008. He lives in Ohio and was a Mortgage Underwriter. His wife was a self-employed real estate appraiser who stopped receiving any income from this business more than three years ago. Their two children are grown and living on their own.

Larry was the main wage earner for his family and did not worry too much about his wife’s appraisal business. Now he is 60 years old (not old enough to collect social security) and with no income coming into his household. He depleted his retirement income, which had dropped significantly in the last two year, and his unemployment benefits have expired. Larry has been employed full time since graduating high school in 1968. He is a hard-working middle class American who, like others of his generation, wanted to provide a comfortable style of living for his wife and children. Larry is proud that he and his wife were able to pay for college for one of their children and radiology school for his other. But now, his confidence and self-esteem are as shattered as the contract he sees broken before him. After 40 years of full time employment, he has been told he is overqualified in his field of work. With only five interviews in two years and five rejections for over-qualification, Larry has given up hope of continuing his underwriting career. And without a job, who is he? In Larry’s mind, he is a man without identity, a man without purpose.