More young men look up to Obama than a religious leader and 12% have been incarcerated what explains the massive male malaise?

The common narrative about the troubles facing young men goes like this: A growing number are failing in school, not working or studying, not dating or forming families and not leaving their childhood bedrooms. They are checked out from social life.Their mental health is poor, their habits are bad — video games, pornography, gambling — and their views are extremist.

What happened to America’s men?My peers and I at the Institute of Family Studies surveyed 2,000 young men to hear what they have to say.Our results show a substantial number of young men are struggling mightily.

That should worry everyone.Three common explanations are usually given for male malaise: institutional structure, individual deficiency and socialization.The structural argument finds by far the most support from our data.The social fabric itself has thinned —a deinstitutionalization, as sociologists call it, that has left our world more formless. Over time, there has been a sharp decline of prescribed roles, inherited life courses, and clear occupational and educational trajectories.We see what is lost by examining the positive effect of the last remaining American institutions with any strength, the formal-education track.Men who took this route — college, trade school, apprenticeships — are faring the best.

This often does not appear while they were in college or training, which can be a distressing time.Rather, it comes afterward, widening men’s horizons for stable employment, friendships, marriage and community.But the higher-education pathway is not open to many men — whether for financial reasons, family responsibilities or fear of failure.

A sad finding: 43% of young men agreed with the appraisal “I am inclined to think I am a failure.”In today’s economy, the focus for many young men is not employment, but a good income.There’s a logic to this position.

Real wages for young men have stagnated in recent decades.Gig work and the disruption of new technologies...