Smartly written piece in the Independent (the best commentary on the boy troubles continues to come from England) on why young women are outdoing young men.
From the piece:
I have male friends, too. Some are doing just fine: they have jobs, they've moved out of parents' homes, they are the lucky few. Many, however, aren't. Of those male peers who are succeeding, many appear to have benefited from the arbitrary advantages one might expect. Wealthy parents, posh voices: these are the armbands of the successful young male graduate. Such attributes will boost anybody's prospects, but they are far more heavily depended upon by young men. Indeed, while male graduates are 50 per cent more likely to be unemployed than female ones, the difference is even starker, according to a recent study by the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), when they come from lower-income backgrounds. The young women who are flourishing are not an economic elite. Quite the opposite: the lower down the income ladder one sits, the more important being female is to one's chance of success. While some well-connected young men might just manage to jump the graduate gap, young women - from all sectors of society - are jumping farther.