Which is correct: high society networking, or, high-society networking?
Chicago Manual of Style gives a middle-class neighborhood/the neighborhood is middle class as an example of a generic rule that adjective + noun compounds should be hyphenated if modifying another noun. However, many common terms like "real estate agent" or "criminal justice major" look very weird to me when hyphenated as "real-estate agent" and "criminal-justice major," and Ngrams seems to agree.
Is there anything going on other than "the commonest forms don't use hyphens"?