please welcome richard reeves.cheers and applause] ♪ ♪ well, thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> desi: i sure appreciate it. this book, "of boys and men," is a reboot of "of mice and men." correct? >> correct. i thought i would go back to literary canon and turn it into a book with so many charts in it. if you remember, "of mice and men" did not have any charts in it. this has got lots of charts in it. so much better. >> desi: i was so happy you made that change and i always felt the problem was with the mice. so you corrected that. >> i am here for you. >> desi: i guess none of these questions will work. start from the beginning. you've spent most of your career researching gender inequality, poverty, family policy, and a lot of your research lead you to write this book, which was on obama's reading list over the summer. congratulations. [cheers and applause] no big deal. i never thought i would say this but could you mansplain this issue to me? >> absolutely, i would be very happy to. i should say, it was

joining me now is richard reeves. president of the american institute for boys and men and author of of boys and men why modern male is struggling, why it matters, and what to do about it. richard, nice to see you again. i cited some data. is there one data point, top of your mind, that you think kind of sums up the issue that we're here to discuss. >> yeah, for me, it's the fact that men in their 30s and 40s now who don't have a college degree, half of them don't have children in their home. and so this move towards having men in homes that don't have children in them, and particularly for working class men, it's like a very, very big change. and for me, rachel's essay and the data you've cited, it speaks to a change, an important change, which is the fact that these milestones aren't just being reached later. but for many people, they're not being reached at all. that we've gone from later, which in some ways can be a good thing to never, which is very rarely a good thing. right? taking a bit more time to get educat

reeve story coming in february on cnn. >> and welcome back to new york's times square. just over an hour until the ball drops. want to check in with our richardwho i think is down in the crowd? richard, how is it down there? >> oh, if you look over your left shoulder, you will see me. anderson, i am over here and i'm the i'm the q train tonight. >> a q train at the subway. >> so here we go choo choo! any more fares? >> hello? >> where are you from? china. you're from china? yes, yes. very nice. are you enjoying it? yeah. all right. hello, sir. where are you from? >> los angeles. los angeles. >> los angeles. what time did you get here? >> uh, 2:00. >> 2:00. have you been here? the best part of eight hours. my word. they're looking. let's have a cheer. come on. let's keep walking down further along. choo choo choo choo choo. hello, madam. where are you from? livermore, california. california. woo hoo! >> and people said it was crazy to come. >> and if this is crazy, then don't make me sing. >> this is awesome. >> this is the best. loving every minute of it. >> i think the rain is getting in, sir. >> i'm from spain. spain. >> you're from spain?