The end of men

Bad news for those of us with only one X-chromosome: men are on their way out. That’s the view of Hanna Rosin, an enterprising young American journalist who has turned an essay she wrote for The Atlantic two years ago into the most talked-about book of the moment — The End of Men: And the Rise of Women.

The central thesis of Rosin’s book — that the balance of power is shifting decisively in favour of women in the developed world — is clearly true, as Liza Mundy demonstrated in last week’s Spectator cover story. Rosin supplies plenty of data to back it up, mainly about the changing composition of the American workforce. In the US recession, three-quarters of the jobs to disappear were held by men, and Rosin shows that as a result there are now more women in employment than men. Of the 15 job categories predicted to grow the fastest over the next decade, only two are dominated by men.