Male Underachievement in Education Across the Globe: A Shift in Paradigm for Gender Disparities Regarding Academic Achievement

In recent popular publications, such as Newsweek and New Republic, several articles have suggested that females outperform males at the elementary and secondary levels and are increasingly outnumbering them at the postsecondary level. This, in turn, has led to the question of “What is happening to boys?” Based largely on the concept of human capital, our inquiry into this question explores male performance on standard indicators throughout the educational pipeline (i.e., elementary, secondary, and postsecondary) and offers specific recommendations to address the education crisis of males.