It's a different topic but... for the past 20-25 years, there has been a concerted effort in or school systems to remove ALL competition, and build self-esteem. One (I assume) unintended consequence of this has been: Boys don't care as much about school, or learning.... and they are LAGGING behind, badly in education.
For 12 years, I have given a lecture each spring to Senior Chemical Engineering students at two local universities... When I first started, the classes were ~ 30% female. These days, they are easily 60% female. Many universities, overall, are skewing >65% female. Men are becoming dumber and poore. It's NOT a good trend.
Maybe... it's the impact of video games? I'm not sure. But, I KNOW it's a trend that needs to be corrected.
Believe it or not (and I suspect most Freepers won’t) but most of your social trends are faithfully copied in Sweden. A few years ago we still had compulsory military service for men. That meant that most boys were more mature when they started their academic studies - a year of physical training, disciplin, service and responsibilty makes a lot of difference. But, alas, our politicians decided this was no longer to be.....
I really don’t know what the young men are doing these days, with most academic educations dominated by girls.