I think part of the problem here is when articles like that like to use titles such as:

"Young women are getting richer, as young men get poorer-

More millennial men are earning less, even with the gender pay gap in their favor, the U.S. Census Bureau reports"

This isn't a men vs women thing. It's a young adult thing, and like you said it's something cultural and societal. The fact that young women are getting educated is a victory for everyone, but MarketWatch would rather use it as social justice bait.

Thats not how I read it at all. It is of course great young women are being educated. However, if you women are more educated than young men then it is possible for the 'average years of education' stat to be going up while the corresponding stat for men is going down.

It would be odd to say that 'young men are less educated than the average young person' because men and women essentially completely partition the space of persons. It is obvious if young men are less educated than the average young person that women would have to be more educated than them.

I just think coming at it from the angle that article did (re: the article title) is framing things the wrong way. The census report they used is more in line with what I think we're both saying here:

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio...

>> The fact that young women are getting educated is a victory for everyone,

Sure, for those Women it's a victory, and many others in society.

But for everyone ? I'm sure some people in society do lose from that extra economic competition and the lower status they get.

That's implying that those same people are being supplanted, and are therefor "losing" because of that. The issue, as I see it, is that society should already have a place for all young adults.