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In an astonishing disclosure about the two greatest dangers to the future of America's economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell revealed on CBS' "
60 Minutes" last month the peril posed by "young males": young males not looking for work; being addicted to drugs (think opioid crisis); and being unprepared for the transition to technology. Powell posits that this economic problem is also a national security problem. He implies that we ignore this crisis at our own peril. Yet his warning is ignored.
In my half-century of research on boys and men, I have discovered that there is, in fact, a boy crisis, that it is a global crisis, and that it is particularly egregious in America. The crisis is more than economic. It is multifaceted, with each facet magnifying the others.
It is a crisis of education. Worldwide, 60% of the students who achieve less than the baseline level of proficiency in any of the three core subjects of the Program for the International Assessment
are boys. Even boys' IQs are
dropping.
It is a crisis of mental health. Boys'
suicide rate goes from only slightly more than girls before age 14 to three times that of girls' between 15 and 19, to 4 1/2 times that of girls between 20 and 24.
Mass shooters,
prisoners and
Islamic State terrorism recruits are at least 90% male.
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