The beached white male: an American nightmare

Charles Laurence: Plight of America’s jobless ‘suits’ raises big questions - like why would you marry one?

By Charles Laurence

LAST UPDATED 7:22 AM, JUNE 14, 2011

America's stubborn economic woes have a new face: the BWM, for Beached White Male. He is the washed-up man who once drove the BMW. Named by Newsweek magazine, he is a college educated middle to upper-middle class professional or corporate suit who has lost his job at the age of 45 or above.

There are millions of them, and they will never work again, marching off to the dole queue in the footsteps of their blue collar cousins, their jobs no longer needed.

The terror begins with a slew of facts and figures. Three-quarters of the eight million white-collar jobs lost since the 2007 crash have belonged to men.

The BWM gets the 'pink slip' while his wife stays on. The Bureau of Labour Statistics counted that 51 per cent of managerial and professional jobs are now held by women, up from 26.1 per cent in 1980; women comprise 54 per cent of all accountants, 45 per cent of lawyers, and 33 per cent of doctors. They fill 50 per cent of banking and insurance jobs.

Nearly 20 per cent of men between the ages of 25 and 54 no longer have full-time jobs. There are 185 women graduates to every 100 men, so they are better qualified among the young of either gender to replace, cheaply, the expensive BWM.

The New York Times noted under the headline 'Easing Out the Gray' that in a "lean and mean" executive market, the 45 and ups are "the first to go". The Economic Policy Institute says 'suits' are doing worse that at any time since the Great Depression. The Fiscal Policy Institute reports that men "in the kill zone" have lost jobs faster than any other group including teenage girls.

The figures go on and on. But it is the effect that is sinking in.

Last week the Washington Post/ABC poll showing that President Obama had lost the bounce he gained from the killing of Osama bin Laden within days, amid a slew of bad economic numbers, from falling house prices to rising unemployment.

But the poll also recorded 61 per cent believing the country to be on the "wrong track". A majority of Americans, born to optimism, now record "pessimism" for the future. A pollster on a television news show declared this to be "the end of the American Dream".

The first American awaking from the dream is the BWM. It is not just his own plight: his way of life was the goal of the factory hands and immigrants diligently working their way up the ladder.

He is a sad sack. When all this began, he walked out of the office with his chest puffed out, his BlackBerry in hand, updating his resume and heeding the headhunters' advice to send out at least 100 job applications a week. The e-mails went unanswered. A few months later, he is dipping into dwindling savings for "recruiting seminars". Then it's job fairs and new business cards reading "consultant". Then it's the "support groups", where BWMs "network", and console each other.

At home, the wife tries to be understanding, and the BWM spends time helping out with the kids and stretching the budget by mowing his own lawn. A poll found 45 per cent saying they lost interest in sex because they were failing to live up their own idea of manhood.

Brian Goodall, 52, a gold medal Olympic swimmer in the 1976 Olympics, lost his job in commercial property in 2008, and has not found work since. He told Newsweek that he is now too ashamed to go the beach with his teenage son while his wife works extra to meet the mortgage.

The divorce rate is rising. Social Security - the state pension - reports a rush of early applicants. And the latest? Suicides.

Unemployment is devastating to these men, warns Dr Jed Diamond, author of Surviving Male Menopause. "The extreme reaction is suicide," he says. "But before you get there, there's irritability and anger, fatigue, loss of energy, withdrawal, drinking, more fights with their wives."

You can be sure that both President Obama and his Republican rivals are paying close attention to the polls. There won't be much of a future for politicians who preside over the end of the American Dream.

And the poor old BWMs had better pay close attention to those wives. These are questions raised just this weekend in the New York Times: How might these changes affect decisions to marry? Should women alter their expectations of what a husband brings to a marriage? That's a biggie. 

via thefirstpost.co.uk