Hey guys.

It's Chelsea from The Financial Diet. And this week's video is brought to you by Wealthsimple.

And you may notice that I have once again slightly rearranged the set, but I promise this is the last one. I just thought it would be nice to be actually at my desk where I write a lot of these scripts when I'm not in the office and now you get to be here with me when I'm filming them. And this week, I wanted to talk to you guys about the flip side of the video that I did last week, which is six unfair costs of being a woman.

As I sort of expected, the video was a bit controversial and many of you asked me to do the same thing for men, which is interesting because we were already planning on doing just that. I think a lot of people took from last week's video that the sort of concept of it was that women are uniquely and solely impacted by really unfortunate gender norms that have financial consequences. But that's absolutely not the case.

Really crushing notions of what gender is supposed to mean can be just as negatively impactful for men as for women. And one of the fundamental ideas of feminism is to really remove some of this crushing grip of those gender norms so that everyone can be free to be perceived as individuals without these preconceived notions that follow us around because of whether we happen to be a man or a woman. In researching this video, I was struck at just how many ways these gender norms really affect men in a financial and even life threatening way and I wasn't even aware of all of them.

The point largely is that we should never pay for what society expects us to be because of our gender. We should move to a place where people are judged and perceived as individuals. And hopefully learning a little bit more about one another will be a part of that fight.

So let's get right into it with six unfair costs of being a man. One of the most striking ways in which it costs men simply to be men because of how society raises them is in the cost of male loneliness. One of the most radical and radically increasing consequences of our notions of masculinity is the increasing social isolation and loneliness, particularly amongst middle-aged American men.

Men are socialized often from birth to perceive the demonstration of emotion toward other men in a platonic way, or the development of adult friends, or the expression of platonic love, as questioning their masculinity or even their sexuality. Men are taught from a young age to reserve all of this love and openness and vulnerability uniquely for their romantic partner. And this results in decreased platonic relationships as men leave areas of basically forced socialization like high school or college.

Adult men simply aren't making and keeping new friends as they move through adulthood. And in fact, when surveyed, middle-aged American men site zero as the most common response when asked how many close friends they have. And this is a rapidly increasing phenomenon with huge social costs that is getting worse almost literally every year.

A 2010 AARP study shows that one in three Americans, aged 45 plus, are chronically lonely and those numbers are up from one in five just 10 years earlier. That's 44 million men and women at risk, right now, today. And long-term chronic loneliness is equal to smoking as a factor for early mortality.

But the story here isn't just one of health risks. Groundbreaking studies by Judy Chu and Niobe Way document the process by which boys are convinced to abandon their close friendships in order to better conform to the expectation of our masculine culture of emotional toughness. And beyond just increased health care costs, loneliness can be literally deadly.

Loneliness can affect the mortality rate directly. Research shows that between 1999 and 2010, suicide among men aged 50 and over rose by nearly 50%. A large part of this increasing social loneliness is the deterioration of the social fabric that used to hold Americans together, particularly outside of urban areas.

Things like church groups, leagues, clubs, et cetera. But the blame can't just be placed on those factors because this is an increasingly male phenomenon. Adult women statistically have much easier times forming new friendships, expressing platonic love, and having diverse social groups well into old age.

And this extreme loneliness puts an increased pressure on the spouses of these men, as well as the marriages themselves, to be everything for that man, their source of social support, validation, friendship, et cetera. It's one of the reasons why it's such a pet peeve of mine when people refer to their spouse as their best friend because best friends have a meaning. Throughout our adult lives, those profound platonic relationships should have their own place and are increasingly cast aside for the one major relationship in our life.

Point being-- we teach men and boys to isolate themselves and it's costing them enormously. Number two is an increased pressure to display well. Generally speaking, men feel an increased pressure to flaunt their paychecks and to prove that they can provide.

Much of what we teach men in terms of their intrinsic value is around how much they are capable of being a provider. And because of this, on the whole, they to be over spenders in specific categories that center around demonstrating wealth. As psychologist Erica Martinez put it "Regarding men showing success, I feel like it's modern man's way of demonstrating that he's a good provider to prospective mates, think peacocking, and the world at large that often judges men on what they can produce, while women wanting to live without debt and comfortably speaks to their desire for stability." And since men, on average, have more take home pay to work with, they have, obviously, more to spend with.

And that societal pressure to prove to what degree they can spend is one of the reasons that women are statistically better savers. Women are more likely than men to say that not living paycheck to paycheck, 76% of women versus 69% of men, and being debt free, 72% vs. 65%, are how they define financial success. Meanwhile, men are more likely to say that material wealth, 23% of men versus 17% of women, and an enviable job, 17% versus 10%, are the top measures for financial success.

And this means that in two key categories of demonstrative spending, that being cars and luxury items, men outspend women on the whole. The median cost of the most recent luxury item that men purchased, $1,150, was more than four times greater than women's most recent luxury purchase of $250, suggesting men make higher priced purchases than women. While the tired stereotype may indeed go, women be shopping, it turns out that when it comes to demonstrating what we're able to do with our income, men are much more susceptible to a societal pressure that demands of them to spend at the top of their abilities.

And similarly, it's still a general societal expectation that men will be the leaders in spending while dating, particularly at the beginning of the relationship. Just as men are expected in life to demonstrate what they can afford to buy, in heterosexual relationships they're also expected to show how much they can provide to a woman even when they've just met her. According to a Match.com survey by the Washington Post, men spend an average of $1,855 on their dating life in 2016, while women spend an average of $1,423.

However, it's not just that women often expect men to do the paying in heterosexual dating situations. It's often men that are putting this pressure on other men. About half of men, according to the Match.com survey, think men should pay on dates.

Only 36% of women agree. And the survey also shows that a shift is happening. Women are getting more and more likely to offer to pay for a first date or at least split the check, which may also be stemming from a desire not to feel like there are any obligations to return the favor.

But ultimately, if the baseline assumption weren't that it was up to the man to impress and provide for the woman even in this just meeting new context, it wouldn't seem so weighty whether or not the woman chooses or chooses not to help pay. But just like we expect men to show that they are the provider in many of these relationships, we also often expect him to show that he's the pursuer. For example, on the dating site OK Cupid, men generally initiate about 80% of the conversations.

And, of course, when you initiate the proposition of possibly dating, it also follows that you may want to be the person to pay for that date. But ultimately, this norm affects us both. Because women are often taught to be coquettish and need to be chaste, and not necessarily be the ones to reach out for what we want.

So we end up missing out on other people we may have otherwise approached and men end up unfairly burdened with the expectation of usually paying regardless of financial means. The solution. Let's start actively treating dating more as two adults coming together in a value neutral way to get to know each other, and not one adult wooing the other one as if it's some sort of a play at a Renaissance fair.

Number four is teaching men fewer domestic skills. Generally speaking, boys do not learn nearly the domestic skills that girls still receive at home when growing up. And rarely is this gap more apparent in a financial sense than with the gap in knowledge about how to cook.

Overall, women spend about $2,300 per year on food away from home, while men spend over $3,000. That is a humongous difference. That's almost a 50% difference.

And when you consider that food and dining usually make up the biggest part of the average person's budget after things like rent or mortgage, the impact of not knowing how to cook for yourself as an adult is one of the biggest gap in skills that will have a day-to-day impact on your wallet. But the narrative, sadly, in many homes is still that men don't really need to learn these skills because eventually they'll find a woman who will do those things for him. All those domestic tasks like cooking, cleaning, basic sewing and repairs, is supposed to be just magically taken care of by the woman that's going to come into their life someday.

And to that, first of all, lull. Because even millennial women are not getting these skills at the same pace that they used to. So you may very well find yourself with a wife who also has no idea how to do any of this stuff.

But also, Americans on the whole are getting married much later in life, which means that as a single man you are liable to spend nearly a decade as a solo adult who is supposedly responsible for doing these things for himself before that magical woman comes along. That's a long time to not know how to cook or fix a button. But most importantly, no one should be waiting for a magical future spouse to come along and fill all of these gaps in their knowledge.

These are day-to-day life skills. And not knowing how to do things like cook or spot remove a stain can cost you literally thousands of dollars a year. But this trend only seems to be getting worse.

In fact, millennials are unfamiliar with a broad range of life skills. They're less likely than older generations to know how to sew, make basic home repairs, or drive manual transmission cars. With GPS at their fingertips, many never really learned how to use physical landmarks to guide them.

But simply put, if you do not learn these skills as a kid, they can be really hard to pick up as an adult. And so this really gendered notion that men don't need these skills as much is costing them enormously as they move through life. Boys should be just is entitled to a well-rounded domestic education as girls.

Having to outsource so many of these tasks to things like the massive rise of convenience based apps for basically every element of your life, means that we're paying way, way more for this stuff while also missing out on incredibly important life skills in the process. Number five is our assumption that fathers are less interested in parenting. So let's just start with the basics.

There is no minimum requirement federally for maternity leave in this country. Which by all standards of what it means to be a functioning society, especially one as rich as ours, is inexcusable. But beyond that, our cultural lack of awareness about what it means to be a parent in the home who also has a job is not just impactful on women.

Although they're both on the rise, it is still much more common for companies to cover maternity leave than paternity leave. The national study of employers found that 14.5 weeks is the average maximum amount of maternity leave that US companies offered in 2016. However, even though paternity leave is now being offered more commonly and for longer periods of time, men who take off for paternity leave usually leave for very little time.

A study by researchers at Ball State and Ohio State universities found that across the US only 14% of fathers who take leave do so for more than two weeks. And often men are taking such a short time off because they simply can't afford to take more. More than three in 10 individuals who received partial or no pay reported cutting their leave short of what was needed and more than four in 10 would have taken longer leaves if they had received more pay.

For two parent families, when mothers may already be taking unpaid leave for a new baby, keeping a father's paycheck coming in may be critical, and having dads take unpaid time off is simply not an option. And this is especially jarring when you consider that in many countries paternity leave isn't just considered an extremely important thing along with maternity leave to offer to employees, it's also very culturally accepted for men to take at its fullest. But gender norms are also heavily in place when it comes to the raising of a child at home, and not because the men feel less attached to being a parent than the woman.

Dads are just as likely as moms to say that parenting is extremely important to their identity. Some 57% of fathers said this compared with 58% of mothers. However, it is still more common for the father in a heterosexual couple to take on being the breadwinner.

And this is so disappointing when you consider that the public at large generally agrees that things should be more equal in the workplace. A majority of the public, 67%, said having more women in the workplace has made it easier for families to live comfortably. And, of course, people also have preconceived notions about who is automatically a better parent based on gender.

According to one 2016 survey, only 1% of respondents said that fathers generally do a better job than mothers at raising a child. And this is my big takeaway, particularly when you combine it with last week's discussion about how mothers are so much more negatively impacted in the workplace than fathers. We need to get to a place where we are not automatically assuming based on gender who will be the batter parent, who will want to spend more time with the kids, or who will want to be the breadwinner.

There are so many factors like who genuinely wants to stay home more, whose career is in a better position to take it further, or even logistic questions about splitting time. We should not automatically assume that fathers are less interested in being around their children or that there's anything wrong with wanting to be the primary caregiver if you're a man. Fathers can be just as incredible parents as mothers can.

And the fact that only 1% of us when surveyed think that that can be the case on average is a little sad. Number six is men are expected to put themselves in danger. Generally speaking, on a social level, men are expected to be more comfortable with dangerous situations and to be put in more dangerous situations.

This is expressed most notably in the workplace where men routinely work more hazardous and life threatening jobs. In 2015, for example, there were 4,836 workplace deaths according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those 4,492 were men and 344 were women.

In other words, men suffered 93% of workplace fatalities that year. This wasn't some aberration. From 2011 to 2015, men accounted for 92.5% of all workplace deaths.

There is still a very gendered, kind of Titanic-esque notion, that men should generally be more comfortable and ready to put themselves in hazardous and even life threatening conditions. And as a result of this gendered expectation that men should be fearless in the face of this danger, fewer safety considerations are put in place in many of these workplaces. And this perception of being risk and danger prone even reflects itself in things like men on average being charged more for car insurance.

Because the assumption is that because men on average tend to be more risk taking and dangerous drivers, every man will be. Even if you're someone who has no desire to put yourself in physically risky situations, there is a really strong tie between your masculinity and your preparedness to put your life at risk. And that should be hugely alarming.

Because no one, including the lower income men who are often working these jobs, should be considered in any way less valuable or even disposable on the job or in life. We should demand more workplace safety rather than demanding that men man up by being OK with the risk of serious injury or death on the job. The point is this notion of hyper masculinity, and danger, and risk, and all of the other things associated with what it means to be a man, affects us in very literal ways like in workplace deaths.

But it also isolates us socially like the great phenomenon of lonely middle-aged American men. It makes us less able to fend for ourselves as in men who are not learning basic domestic skills. And it generally means that men are assumed to come with a ton of notions about who they are and what they want, even down to being less interested in raising their own children.

Just as with my last video, I hope that the biggest takeaway can be that we should not be defined by our gender. We should be defined by who we are in life and what we want, what actually matters to us. And if you are someone who is looking to build a smart and valuable future for yourself, regardless of gender, you should check out Wealthsimple.

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No excuses. As always, guys, thank you for watching. And don't forget to hit the Subscribe button and to come back every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for new and awesome videos.

Bye.