The Lost Boys of Canada

According to the 1971 census, they report, 68 per cent of 25- to 29-year-old university graduates were male. Ten years later, 54 per cent were male and by 1991, the number was down to 51 per cent. By 2001, only 42 per cent of university graduates were male. According to the Youth in Transition survey, 38.8 per cent of 19-year-old women had attended university by 2003, compared with only 25.7 per cent of 19-year-old men. This large sex divide has ramifications, write Frenette and Zeman. Women are delaying the age at which they have their first child, and will likely reduce the sex wage gap. Also, given the propensity of higher-educated individuals to marry other higher-educated individuals, "this may lower marriage prospects for young men" as well as for educated women. This is one of the factors driving the rapidly plummeting rate of marriage among Canadians, Sax says. Across North America and Western Europe, he says, "we find young women working hard, anxious to get good marks -- and their brothers are goofballs, more anxious about video games than getting an A."