Why Boys Are Falling Behind—And Why That Matters

A June Economist article quietly marked a cultural turning point: around the world, the historic preference for having boys is fading. In fact, in many countries, there’s now a slight tilt toward preferring daughters. On the surface, that appears to be progress—a move toward gender equity after decades of imbalance.

However, beneath that hopeful statistic lies a darker story: as a society, we're increasingly uncertain about what to do with our boys once they’re born. We’re witnessing not just a demographic shift, but a profound emotional detachment from our sons—and it’s creating a quiet epidemic of academic underachievement, mental distress, and social isolation.

Is this really about gender preference at birth or more about the growing discomfort with the emotional and developmental needs of boys? If the latter, those unmet needs are playing out in real time, in families, in schools, and across our culture.

The data is clear. By kindergarten, boys are already falling behind girls in language development and self-regulation skills, which are foundational to academic success. Today, girls make up nearly 60% of the U.S. college student population, and women now outnumber men at every level of higher education. Boys are also more likely to repeat a grade, be diagnosed with learning disabilities, and receive disciplinary actions at school. Socially, boys are struggling even more: Teen boys report far higher rates of social anxiety, loneliness, and emotional withdrawal. One in seven young men reports having no close friends. And men account for three-quarters of suicides and drug overdoses in the U.S.

I’m not the first person to notice this shift. Dr. Warren Farrell, in his book with Dr. John Gray, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do, discusses the crises of education, fatherlessness, and purpose in our boys. Richard Reeves wrote the book Of Boys and Men, in which he delves deeply into the data on why boys and men are falling behind in education, employment, and mental health, and explores what society’s lack of a coherent response means for our future. In studying these disparities, he founded the American Institute of Boys and Men, an organization dedicated to researching the structural issues at the root of these problems and proposing and advocating for policy solutions to address them. Professor and author Scott Galloway has also been sounding the alarm for years on why the youth, especially our boys, have been so miserable, citing economic, cultural, and societal pressures.

These outcomes aren’t due to boys being less capable. It’s because we’ve built educational and social environments that are less responsive to their attachment needs. We ask boys to sit still before they’re developmentally ready. We treat their physicality as aggression. And when they show sadness, fear, or anxiety, we too often label it as defiance or immaturity.

Attachment theory teaches us that emotional security is the bedrock of healthy development. Children—especially boys—need consistent, attuned caregivers to co-regulate their emotions, scaffold their social learning, and provide a secure base from which to explore the world. Boys don’t need less emotional support; they often need more.

But our cultural messages tell boys to “man up,” not to cry, to be independent too soon. At the same time, early education systems are increasingly structured in ways that don’t allow for the expression of natural male energy, curiosity, or delayed verbal-emotional integration.

Without attachment security, boys struggle to form trusting relationships with teachers, peers, and even parents. This lack of emotional grounding is misinterpreted as a discipline problem, a motivation issue, or “boys just being boys.” But what we’re seeing is disconnection. And disconnection turns into despair.

This isn’t a time for the oft-expressed schadenfreude that the shoe of oppression now appears to be on the other foot in the gender wars. That view is both short-sighted and harmful. It mistakes concern for boys as a rollback of women’s progress. It isn’t. The hard-won gains made by women in education, the workplace, and public life should be celebrated and protected. But lifting boys does not mean pulling girls down. Empowerment doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. The opposite is true: a society that raises emotionally healthy, securely attached boys produces better partners, fathers, coworkers, and citizens. We all benefit when boys are emotionally supported, educationally engaged, and socially integrated.

Let me be clear: the solution isn’t to coddle boys or to regress as a society to outdated gender roles. Acknowledging that boys are struggling doesn’t mean aligning with the “manosphere” or ignoring the very real and ongoing struggles faced by girls and women globally. It’s to honor their developmental timelines and invest in their emotional lives. Here’s what that might look like:

• Start boys in school a year later, giving them time to develop the impulse control and verbal fluency that many girls develop earlier.

• Bring more men into teaching and mentoring roles, especially in early childhood settings. Boys benefit enormously from seeing emotional attunement modeled by male caregivers.

• Support parents in building secure attachments, especially in the early years. Fathers matter deeply here, but so do attuned mothers who understand that boys need emotional permission, not emotional suppression. This can be achieved through paid parental leave, flexible work arrangements, or encouraging community initiatives that accommodate quality alloparenting.

• Shift the narrative: Boys are not broken. However, they are being raised in systems that fail to understand their needs.

The end of son preference and the gains that our girls and women have made academically, economically, and socially are to be celebrated. But we should not do so while quietly withdrawing our emotional investment in boys. In doing so, we will raise a generation of young men who feel unwanted, unsafe, and untethered. That is an attachment crisis waiting to happen, and it will not stay confined to homes or classrooms. It will continue to ripple through relationships, families, workplaces, and entire communities.

What The Economist rightly pointed out is that people are starting to worry about boys’ futures. But worry is not enough. We must act.