Latest news with #LucSchuster
Boston Globe
06-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
In Massachusetts, men and boys are falling behind, new report shows
And while gender pay gaps persist, men without a college degree have seen their wages stagnate, limiting their economic mobility. The staggering data is highlighted in a Advertisement 'I'm concerned that in recent years as some of these data points have gotten more and more troubling, people in blue states like Mass. have have been too cautious to engage in the discussion,' said Luc Schuster, one of the authors of the report and the executive director of Boston Indicators. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'Men are half the population, and if we don't engage in these issues in a thoughtful way, other more reactionary voices will step in and dominate discussion,' he added. While the authors of the report are quick to point out that the Take education for instance. Across the state, male high school students perform worse academically than female students: They're completing fewer advanced courses, graduating at lower rates, and are less likely to enroll in college. Employment without a bachelor's degree has become more challenging over the years, too, the report finds. In 1983, 87 percent of men between the ages of 25 and 54 were employed. That number fell to 78 percent in 2023. Why they're not employed is also distinct. Among women, 49 percent say they are taking care of their family or home. Compare that to unemployed men, 48 percent of whom state they are ill or disabled. Advertisement Men of color are especially impacted. In the state, white men's full-time median earnings in 2023 were at $1,659 a week. Black men's earnings however dropped to $1,098, and Latino men's earnings were the lowest at $929. Jobs that have traditionally been held by men such as manufacturing, retail, and wholesale trade, also saw declines in the last decade, while industries such as health care and education — ones typically associated with women — have grown. 'In the Boston area, our kind of bread and butter is health and education,' said Branden Miles, the policy and research manager for the Mayor's Office of Black Male Advancement. The office, which was Men 'who may not have had the training or the ability to access higher education are struggling' to break into these fields, Miles said. Part of the challenge for Black boys and men, he said, is battling stereotype threat, a psychological impact in which marginalized groups struggle to fight back against negative narratives about their identity, leading to stress and anxiety. Black men and boys are sometimes seen as 'challenging, a threat, or intimidating,' he said, and that's why the office tries to approach their work with an asset-based approach, focusing on the talents of Black boys and men. The ability for men to provide for themselves and their family has consequences, said Richard Reeves, one of the authors of the study and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Advertisement 'You don't freeze the wages of particular group in society and not pay the price,' he said. Reeves also points to initiatives to get more women into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but fewer efforts to get men into fields such as health, education, administration, and literacy. Workforce training and other targeted policies could address this gap to get more men into higher-paying fields such as nursing, that also face a national Ultimately, the goal is to get 'break out of zero sum thinking' Reeves said, and 'to show that it is possible to draw responsible attention from the boys and men without in any way taking away from the necessary ongoing effort on behalf of women and girls.' This story was produced by the Globe's team, which covers the racial wealth gap in Greater Boston. You can sign up for the newsletter . Esmy Jimenez can be reached at
Boston Globe
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
What else is gone from federal websites? Troves of census data, rattling local groups.
Related : Advertisement On Friday evening, the US Census Bureau's website was completely inaccessible for a few hours as data were scrubbed from the site. And as of Tuesday afternoon, data pages on population estimates for US counties, cities, towns, and metropolitan areas were still blocked from public view on Those datasets are among the most important maintained by the federal government and inform both public policy and funding, as well as private business operations. The following datasets were among the most consequential that were still inaccessible on as of Tuesday afternoon: Estimates of US US The Statistics of US Businesses Since the deletions, users of the Census Bureau's data have scoured the internet to find other copies in case they never come back online. The Census Bureau is not the only federal site being buffeted by content purges. Many federal agencies, Advertisement Researchers who use the Census Bureau's menu of data on a daily basis say they were not informed that the data were going to be removed and have not been told if or when they will ever be republished. Amid the wide-ranging shakeup, LGBTQ-related research papers and blogs were also stripped from the Census Bureau's website. A research paper that used census data to The purge of LGBTQ+ research comes at a pivotal time for the Census Bureau, researchers say. The agency had only recently begun collecting large-scale data on LGBTQ+ populations to try and build an accurate tally and track the issues they face. A detailed tally of LGBTQ+ Americans does not yet exist, because major US national surveys were not previously asking relevant questions. 'It's a scary time, because we've spent decades trying to build a really big, robust research base, and in one fell swoop they are trying to sweep it out the door,' said Elana Redfield, federal policy director at the Williams Institute, a UCLA-based think tank that studies sexual orientation and gender issues. 'It's an existential question: Do facts matter?' It's unclear if the Census Bureau will release future data on sexual orientation and gender identity, some of which has already been collected. The entire webpage explaining the Census Bureau's planned use of data related to 'Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity' has been shut down. Census officials did not respond to written questions from the Globe asking about their future plans. xxCensusData Globe Staff Globe Staff If the wide array of currently inaccessible content continues to remain blocked in the months to come, the impacts would be immense not just for researchers, but also for private commercial groups who use census data to model their expansion efforts, said Luc Schuster, executive director of Boston Indicators. Advertisement 'Private companies use census data all the time to target growing customer bases to determine where they might want to set up a new branch of their businesses,' he said. Boston Indicators, the research division of the Boston Foundation, also relies heavily on census data in its reports about how social, political, and demographic trends are reshaping the Commonwealth. For decades, the Census Bureau has been viewed widely as one of the most reliable and accurate sources of information on US demographic trends. The mass removal of content since last Friday has completely upended that reputation, experts say. 'The fact that all sorts of people are using this data all of the time, and then they pulled the rug out from under businesses, researchers, and all kinds of people suggests they are okay with sowing chaos,' Schuster said. 'It risks eroding confidence in the current administration.' Scooty Nickerson can be reached at
