Men benefit from going to work every day to provide for themselves and their families. Yet surveys and studies have consistently shown that millions of able-bodied men are not working or looking for work.
Consider that in 1962, about 97% of men ages 25 to 54 were working or looking for work. Today, that number is closer to 89%.
This lack of working men hurts women too; one survey found that 78% of women picked “a steady job” as the most important characteristic of a potential husband. Women weighted this characteristic higher than sharing the same beliefs about religion and children.
Currently married men who refuse to work hurt their wives and children by refusing to assist in helping their spouse fulfill her natural desire to be at home with the children. One survey found that women with children under 18 years of age preferred being at home to working.
A 2021 poll by FlexJobs found that women, more than men, preferred remote work versus working inside an office. Some of the reasons cited include work-life balance and more time for family.
Yet many men are wasting hours playing video games or watching television, setting themselves up for a life of immaturity.
Men have a responsibility to wake up every morning and go to work to contribute to society, grow in maturity, and prepare for marriage and fatherhood. This is not because men have an economic duty to contribute to the capitalist economy but rather because they have a social duty to provide for themselves and their families.
A virtuous man does not spend his days on the couch playing video games, drinking alcohol, or watching pornography. Career coach Ken Coleman recently commented on the lack of men working by explaining that having a job helps people mature. “Making a contribution for yourself and for others,” Coleman said, will help men feel “alive.”
He creates something of value and contributes to the common good — a police officer keeps the town safe, a car mechanic helps someone have a reliable car for transportation, and an accountant helps citizens avoid paying unnecessary taxes. Someone who watches television all day does none of this. He wastes the life he has been given in the pursuit of idleness, which he captures every day.
Working, even at a job he does not particularly enjoy, helps prepare men for the sacrifices of marriage and fatherhood. A man who works at a job he does not like to provide for his family puts the interests of others before his own.
Women may not particularly enjoy changing diapers or feeding babies in the middle of the night, but there is a shared experience in knowing that her husband may not particularly enjoy working 12-hour shifts either. In a family and a society, every person makes sacrifices to ensure that others can live a safe and healthy life.
Those benefits do not come from not working, not trying to work, and all around being a lazy human being who refuses to use their life for anything of value to themselves or others.
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Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.
