The Real Reason Young Men Are Struggling To Succeed
August 5, 2026
Some old-school conservatives say that the problem of young people failing to launch is nothing more than a failure of personal responsibility. Personal responsibility is certainly good and necessary. But it seems unlikely that today’s young people are inherently different and less responsible than people used to be. And indeed, a new Institute for Family Studies study finds “nothing of the sort.” Most young men, it says, “have worthy goals, including for marriage, children, and financial independence,” and they “value a sense of belonging, warm relationships, and being well-respected.”
The most compelling reason for failure to launch, according to the report, is a loss of social structure: “Over time, there has been a sharp decline of prescribed roles, inherited life courses, clear occupational and educational trajectories, and the like. Where there was once a given social pattern, an ‘institution,’ like sustained work for the same company, there is now a more open and indeterminate field of options and choices.”
