"Boy crisis" threatens America's future with economic, health, and suicide risks

I discovered that the boy crisis resides where dads do not reside. For example, The American Psychological Association found that father absence predicts the profile of both the bully and the bullied’s poor social skills, and the bully’s poor grades and self-esteem. Every 1% increase in fatherlessness in a neighborhood predicts a 3% increase in adolescent violence. It starts early. Prior to six months of age, the less interaction a boy has with his dad, the lower his mental competence.

And dad-deprivation is a significant predictor of the increasing rate of male suicide, drug overdose, obesity, and withdrawal into video game addiction. It even predicts by age nine a shorter life expectancy as determined by shorter telomeres. Aggregately, this leads to my predicting that the biggest gap between boys who are successful and unsuccessful in the future will be the gap between those who are dad-enriched versus dad-deprived.

As Powell points out, the U.S. exacerbates this problem by falling behind every developed nation in preparing our sons for the changes in technology. In contrast, Japan has extensive vocational education programs, with 99.6% of their graduates receiving jobs after graduation. A boy who is not academically-inclined may be bored by physics and chemistry until he learns that to be a highly-paid welder he needs them. Then he sees purpose, and his motivation changes.