Went and dug a little deeper and it seems that for high-income nations, this trend of more women than men graduating in universities (as well as outperforming in school) has been going on for multiple decades now.
Apart of me wants to think its just right-wing hysteria because this was brought to my attention by some random podcast clip using this example as somehow proof that patriarchy doesn’t exist lol. Some articles I read did mention how other factors (particularly class and race) was a higher determinant of school/university success.
And I particularly do not like biological explanations anyways (too essentialist to my taste, but I can’t say for sure). I forgot which article in particular but it did argue it’s because men used to be able find jobs in more traditional blue-collar industries, leading to this present day discrepancy.
What do you all think?
It’s certainly a very glaring problem. Not saying more women graduating and attending college is bad, that’s great! But seeing how men are going down and down and graduation and attendance rates is concerning.
More concerning is that most articles and media that covers this can’t offer any good explanations, obviously the right wing want to use it to attack colleges for affirmative action, but having no other real explanations is a problem. In my opinion, I don’t think it’s the decline in good jobs in blue collar industries necessarily, but more so that opportunities brought to you by college are generally not great anymore. Even in STEM, you arent going to find a good job after college unless you have good connections. So it definitely demotivates young men from trying in school, knowing that they’re basically just there for a piece of paper that MAYBE will give them better opportunities down the line. And even if they don’t, it’s generally more accepted for young men to fall back on manual labor jobs like construction, whereas for women this isn’t really an option, which is why I think they tend to try to stick to college and perform well.
Overall, as a young man in college, it is very concerning how far degrees have dropped in value. My girlfriend graduated last year with a STEM degree. From what we’ve all been told as kids, that should mean she’s set for life, now she can get a good job and start her career path. Not so simple. She looked around for jobs in her area, most didn’t pay well, she found the best option she could have, only paid around 16-17 an hour for a lab tech position. She’s been there for almost a year now, and they’ve been dangling a raise in front of her like a carrot, and using it to make her work overtime and generally be bossed around in the workplace. Its horrible. But this was the best option she had. She doesn’t even make enough to move out of her parents house.
This is how the job market is treating graduates, and IMO, it’s not surprising seeing young men look at this and say fuck that.
But for what reason would young men in particular be more sensitive to a job crisis that would push it towards to not going to university? Not trying to critique you or anything here, it just seems odd, as also a male university student, in which in my own limited life have been hammered from birth til now that university opens opportunities, would think if that were to be the case, be pretty much non-gender specific.
Keep in mind this is a global trend. The linked press release mentioning that more than 110 countries of the ~150 studied, had more women graduating than men. This includes a vast majority of middle income and low-mid income countries, in which STEM still pays well (at least better than the average). Where university education still isn’t as widespread as it is in the West.
I wonder if part of it is that boys are almost encouraged to horseplay?
In school this means messing about and being ‘one of the lads’, and up through university it means e.g. excessive drinking and again being ‘one of the lads’. This also frequently involves sports teams and extroversion. In a way, boys who become men who can fit into that kind of environment can probably make up for lower grades better than women can when it comes to job hunting.
Being ‘a bit cheeky’ can balance out some underachievement, and (some) boys seem to know this from a young age.
In several jobs I’ve had there was never really a question of the employer hiring a woman for my position even if one applied who was better qualified.
With sexism still so embedded in the workplace, maybe one factor in boys’ underachievement is that they are just planning on winging it?
PS I got very mixed messages about going to university when growing up. From some, it was the key to success and wealth. From some, it was something that would be good but was very much optional. From others it was an utter waste of time (even studying a ‘useful’ degree). I think Normal People by Sally Rooney almost completely captures my experience. If I don’t see myself in one of the two main characters at any given point in the novel, I see myself in the other. You might get something like an answer to your broader OP question from that novel, btw. It might be one to save for after you graduate, though. I’m not sure if it would hit so hard reading it during uni.
I really don’t know, it’s a very strange phenomenon. I think it could be both what you describe as “boys will be boys” culture and a general culture of despair that I’ve seen growing around a lot of especially online communities with young men. A lot of young men feel completely lost in life, not knowing at all what to do, don’t have a plan, don’t know what to plan, and are scared of the future. I used to be one of them and kind of still am. Every young guy I know is like this except for a rare few that seem to have themselves figured out, or atleast can present that way.
It’s very hard to get motivated when you feel lost in life. When I was lost in high school, it was very hard to try for good grades, because I had no plans for the future, I had no idea what I wanted to do, if I wanted to go to college, what I’d do in college etc. It wasn’t really because I felt like id be okay, more the exact opposite, I was scared, very scared of the future. I know a lot of young men feel this way. Add to this the “boys will be boys” culture, no one really pays any mind to it, they see a boy struggling in school and think “ah that’s just normal he’s just a young man growing up” and they don’t think about asking to help or intervening in any way.
It’s more concerning because the far- right preys on young men like this. They know exactly how to wheel them in, and funnel them into mindsets blaming women and minorities for how they feel. Guys like Jordan Peterson have seen a meteoric rise in popularity for this exact reason, they try to speak to them.
As for why they feel bad, I couldn’t put a finger on anything specific, even in my own experiences. Things just looked bleak, nothing seemed certain, and nothing looked like a good opportunity. I guess you could say the collapsing weight of neoliberal capitalism has been hitting young men so hard because they used to be at the top of the pecking order, and the culture around them always made it seem like everything would work out for them, and now it isn’t at all. But I don’t know, just brainstorming.
You’re describing me, in many ways.
It is tough. I was lucky to have a few good role models at certain key moments.
I’d maybe make two observations.
First, people like Peterson are not necessarily as popular as they appear, but they get boosted by algorithms and funded by the bourgeois partly because they funnel people away from radicalism. (Well, left wing radicalism. I’d argue that what Peterson, especially, is peddling, is a right wing radicalism.)
Second, I think you’re right about that feeling of ‘it seem like everything would work out for them, and now it isn’t at all’ (emphasis added). But there are many in the previous generation for whom things did not work out. They went through the same struggles that our generation(s) are going / went through. This doesn’t change the feeling for young people, but it may help us explain it.
If previous generations of boys went through the same thing, or a similar thing, why is it that we think it’s only a modern problem? At some level I would think that this feeling comes from attempts to divide the workers in grounds of age.
This doesn’t change the stats, by the way, but it may require us to look for a different kind of answer than the one that we’re ‘expected’ to find. By this I mean, we might now ask, if working class boys had received the same level of education as do working class boys today, would we have seen similar statistics in the past as we see today?
I also am just thinking through the issues. I have no answers.
If the stats would be similar for boys in previous generations, maybe we’re looking, as you say, at the weight of maybe not neoliberal capitalism, but various forms of patriarchal capitalism. This gendered system sets up all sorts of unattainable goals and maybe some boys realise this but cannot articulate what’s going on or their reaction to it?
My response mainly pertains to your PS because it made me think about the role of pedagogy in different socieites but like in the other thread, I do agree that cultural values instilled on boys in particular plays a heavy part in how they treat school.
That’s interesting. Maybe because of my background, where my parents were born and raised in rural villages, and were able to climb up the social ladder because of university in the west, made it seem that university was non-optional. (That is to say I lived a completely comfortable life because of this). My grandparents never even graduated high school, only reaching the equivalent of key stage 2 or 3 in British terms.
I could also see it as being a much more wider implication. There’s this stereotype that people in the global south love education and those in the West hate it. I have definitely not read enough nor have any data proving this but it does make me wonder if there is some merit to this assertion.
In my home country, the government is very adamant in expanding university education. And unlike in the anglo West, although still needs to be paid, university isn’t as much of a money furnace. With talks of brain drain, and the like, it’d make sense that one of the key infrastructural issues plaguing development in the global south is, well, skill development and education.
Maybe in the West where they can rely on aforementioned brain drain, and the harsh realities of the job market meant that university has indeed fallen from prestige. It certainly does fit with the capitalist individualist motto that anyone can achieve their dreams if they work hard enough.
And also thanks for the fiction book recommendation. I really do need to expand my reading list from just nonfiction books lol.
There’s definitely some racist stereotypes in the West about that North / South divide over education.
I think I got those mixed messages because I’m from a blue collar background. There’s a bit of… something… that manifests as anti-intellectualism in the blue collar world. It’s a kind of, ‘they’re not better than us just because they’re educated, and we’ll prove it’. So it can feel like you’re betraying your blue collar heritage by going to university.
I think you’ve identified another factor involved, as well. Roth’s Educated Underclass touches on this: a higher education is no guarantee of a good job or a good life. I can’t remember the exact stats from the book, but it’s something like – the child of working class, low income parents must study to Masters level to expect the same ‘outcomes’ as the child of a higher income parents (I can’t remember the income threshold for the parents) who only just passes their school exams at 16.
The real numbers may be slightly different, but the point is there’s a huge class disparity. Maybe boys in the West see more of the world than they’re given credit for, and just think (or their families / friends think), ‘nope, what’s the point’. That doesn’t explain the global trend of boys’ under performance. But it may explain negative attitudes to education in the West. I’m the global south, maybe there’s still(?) a good chance of getting a good job through education?