LogFAQs > #877022124

Back in 1977, 55 per cent of men aged between 18-25 agreed the ideal family arrangement was a male breadwinner and a female homemaker. By 1994, that figure fell to just 18 per cent, only a marginally different result than what was recorded among women of the same age.

But when the survey was conducted again in 2014, the trend towards egalitarianism had reversed. 45 per cent of young American men now favour a family arrangement where they go to work and their female partner doesn’t.

Most of them would have grown up with mums that worked outside the home in some capacity. They belong to a generation among whom there is widespread acceptance of gender being non-binary. They don’t have particularly traditional views on other issues; for example they overwhelmingly support same sex marriage. What has made them more conservative about the roles women and men play than their parents were?

Professor Dan Cassino thinks this shift in attitudes might be “a powerful way for young men to assert their masculinity … in a world in which the dominant economic role of men is no longer a given”.

There is another suggestion that this is the generation of young men who saw their dads lose jobs in the global financial crisis. Perhaps their more traditional views are a reaction to seeing their own fathers struggle with notions of masculinity and being a “provider”.