The Boy Crisis
The Evidence, Causes, and Solutions
What is the boy crisis?
The boy crisis is global, predominately in developed nations. It is a crisis of:
Mental health. As boys become young men, their suicide rate goes from equal to girls to five times greater.1 Boys are much more likely to be addicted to drugs, porn, and video games2 and to die from opioid overdose. They are also more likely to be in prison or to be on the street homeless. Even their IQs are dropping.3
Education. In the 53 largest developed nations, boys fall behind girls in almost every academic subject, especially reading and writing—the most significant predictors of success or failure. Boys are much less likely than girls to graduate from high school or college.4, 5
Physical health. Boys and men die sooner than females from 14 out of 15 of the leading causes of death. And their sperm counts are dropping, leading to less healthy children of both sexes.6
Purpose. Boys’ old sense of purpose—risking their lives in war, the most hazardous jobs, or being the sole breadwinner—has been replaced by a “purpose void.”
Shame. When boys in elementary school are already hearing phrases like “toxic masculinity” and seeing TV shows like Homer Simpson where dads are bumbling fools, they begin to feel ashamed they are male. By junior high, as they hear that they are part of the patriarchy that develops rules to benefit men at the expense of women and that fathers are often “deadbeat dads,” many feel ashamed they were born male.
Fertility. Female college graduates do not wish to marry and have children with male college dropouts, nor with males in unemployment lines or who live in their parents’ basements.
National Security. Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, revealed on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in 2019 that the peril posed by young males not looking for work, being addicted to drugs, and being unprepared for the transition to technology is not just an economic problem but also one of the top two national security problems.7
What are the primary causes?
The causes are multifaceted, and each facet magnifies the others. However, more than any other, the boy crisis resides where dads do not.
Boys who are dad-deprived are predominantly in developed or wealthier nations.8 Why? In more prosperous countries, the need to survive is low, allowing for a greater luxury of choice—the choice to divorce—which often means minimal dad involvement and the choice for a mom to have children without being married to the dad. Thus, 40% of U.S. women who have children do so without marriage.9
When the government in wealthier nations plays the role of substitute husband by subsidizing the single mom, this can reinforce dad deprivation. In all these cases, sons are less likely to have a same-sex role model and, as boys, have less propensity to express their feelings, especially to dads they seldom or never see or who abandoned them. The result is a weaker nuclear family without the three crucial contributors to children’s emotional security: moms, dads, and faith.
When I did the research for The Boy Crisis, I discovered that both boys and girls who are dad-deprived suffer on more than 50 metrics, but boys, without a same-sex role model, experience the deprivation more intensely. For example, by age nine, dad-deprived children have shorter telomeres (specific DNA-protein structures), which predicts a 14% shorter life expectancy; however, the telomeres of the dad-deprived boys are yet again 40% shorter for the boys than the girls.10
Boys without the boundary enforcement of a dad often fail to develop the resilience they need to succeed. They are more likely to be high school dropouts and unemployed, to bully and be bullied, and to lack both trust and empathy.11 Also, they are five times as likely to do drugs.12 These boys are rejected by girls, disrespected by boys, feel like failures, and experience isolation. They are hurt boys.
Boys who hurt us are hurt boys. Almost all school shooters are dad-deprived boys and/or have suffered from extremely high-conflict families or divorces.13 About 85% of our prisoners are dad-deprived.14
The young man who recently used his car to kill 14 people in New Orleans had been isolated and angry at his divorced parents, his own three divorces, and the resulting debts he could not pay.15 He was hurt, and he was outraged. Anger is vulnerability’s mask.
Some Solutions?
If dad deprivation is the primary problem, dad involvement is the primary solution. The best way to assure dad involvement is to keep the family strong and together—not by the need to survive but by choice. How?
While conducting the 30 years of couples’ workshops that led to Role Mate to Soul Mate, I was able to identify and help couples practice seven “love enhancements” that made their relationships strong and kept them together. The result of stronger families and fewer divorces is more dad involvement, which, in turn, mitigates the boy crisis.
The most important of the seven love enhancements is developing the ability to handle personal criticism from a loved one without being defensive. Almost as important is “filling the reservoir of love” by knowing how to appreciate your loved one with at least five levels of specificity and developing the discipline to do that consistently.
These love enhancements also lead to fewer “minimum security prison marriages” in which the parents stay together “for the children” but not for their love. Parents with “minimum security prison marriages” do not inspire their children to marry and have children.
Schools can also offer multiple solutions for all boys— especially dad-deprived boys. The following are four examples.
First, teachers. There should be an approximately equal number of male and female elementary school teachers so boys do not go from mother-only families to female-only elementary schools.
Second, vocational education. Instead of non-academically inclined boys dropping out of high school and experiencing a more than 20% unemployment rate in their early 20s, vocational education can give them a skill set that provides pride and purpose. Japan has extensive vocational education programs, with 99.6% of their graduates receiving jobs.16
A non-academically inclined boy is more likely to be motivated by concrete goals. He may be bored by physics and chemistry until he learns that he needs them to be a highly paid welder.
The economy is transitioning from muscle to microchip, with 1.7 million truck drivers predicted to be largely replaced by self-driving trucks.17 Vocational education is needed to facilitate the transition of young men.
Third, recess. Physically active boys can more easily be mentally focused. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) find that a minute of recess improves students’ test scores more than a minute of studying.18 Recess is especially important for boys who are not academically inclined.
Fourth, sports. Varsity sports need to be supplemented by intramural sports that include every boy. Tackle football needs to be replaced by flag football so taxpayer money is not used to send the message to boys that they can only be loved and honored by risking their bodies and brains. Coaches need to be informed of dad-deprived boys so they can be aware of how important they may be as role models.
Legislation can also help. Florida’s legislation contributed $70 million to encourage dad involvement.19 One way is to let dads know precisely how and why they are needed, and dads need to hear this from moms. Men can then replace being needed as warriors in combat with being “Father Warriors.” It is easier to love and be loved than to kill and be killed. States are increasingly replacing current laws—laws that give mothers of divorce the right to their children while fathers are left to fight for them—with laws giving priority to equal shared parenting.
President Trump, with an executive order, can create a White House Council on Boys and Men to make the boy crisis a national priority so millions of parents and sons do not feel isolated and ashamed—but instead supported to address a solution toward stronger families, more boy-friendly schools, and a greater economic and psychologically secure America. ?
Endnotes
1. National Center for Health Statistics. (2017). Table 30. Death rates for suicide, by sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age: United States, selected years 1950-2016. Health, United States, 2017. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ?
2. Liu, Q., Wang, Y., Wang, H., & Zhang, J. (2018). The reciprocal relationship between parental monitoring and Internet gaming disorder in adolescents: A three-wave longitudinal study. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 95. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00095. ?
3. Flynn, J.R. (2006, January 24). IQ decline and Piaget: Does the rot start at the top? The Guardian. ?
4. OECD. (2015). The ABC of gender equality in education: Aptitude, behaviour, confidence, PISA. OECD Publishing. This statistic is based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, which show that boys are more likely than girls to be low achievers across the three core subjects (reading, mathematics, and science) in most participating countries. ?
5. National Center for Education Statistics. (2025). Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/. PISA is coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries conducted in the United States by NCES. ?
6. Xu, J., Murphy, S.L., Kochanek, K.D., & Bastian, B.A. (2016). Deaths: Final data for 2013. National Vital Statistics Reports, 64(2). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr 64_02.pdf. ?
7. CBS News. (2019, March 10). Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell: The “60 Minutes” interview. Retrieved from https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/MO66y6B7nzpwd_1nvhGG2rt6PEwlDO8k/. ?
8. United Nations. (2011). Men in families and family policy in a changing world. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/men-in-families.pdf. ?
9. VerBruggen, R. (2025, January 14). How we ended up with 40 percent of children born out of wedlock. Institute for Family Studies. Retrieved from https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-we-ended-up-with-40-percent-of-children-born-out-of-wedlock. ?
10. American Academy of Pediatrics. (2017). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, 140(2), e20163245. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/2/e20163245. ?
11. American Psychological Association. (2010, July 8). Boys more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD. EurekAlert! Retrieved from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/apa-wil070810.php. ?
12. Knoester, C., & Haynie, D.L. (2005). Community context, social integration into family, and youth violence. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(4), 1003-1013. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00168.x. ?
13. Harris, J. (2025, January 14). What female mass shooters reveal about male ones. The Daily Beast. Retrieved from https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-female-mass-shooters-reveal-about-male-ones/. ?
14. Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2025). Inmate gender statistics. Retrieved from https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics /statistics_inmate_gender.jsp. ?
15. Miller, M. (2025, January 4). New Orleans attack: Shamsud-Din Jabbar and the implications of youth disconnection. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/us/new-orleans-attack-shamsud-din-jabbar-isis.html. ?
16. Fujimoto, T. (2025, January 14). Vocational schools on the move. Japan Today. Retrieved from https://japantoday.com/category/features/executive-impact/vocational-schools-on-the-move. ?
17. Kitroeff, N. (2016, September 24). Automated trucks could reshape the labor market. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-automated-trucks-labor-20160924/. ?
18. Zavacky, F., & Michael, S.L. (2017). The importance of recess in schools. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ?
19. Florida Governor’s Office. (2022, June 15). Governor Ron DeSantis signs groundbreaking legislation to support involved fatherhood. ?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) find that a minute of recess improves students’ test scores more than a minute of studying.
About the Author
Warren Farrell, Ph.D., is the author of The Boy Crisis and Role Mate to Soul Mate, plus The New York Times bestseller, Why Men Are the Way They Are. He was chosen by The Financial Times of London as one of the world’s top 100 thought leaders. Dr. Farrell chairs The Coalition for a White House Council on Boys and Men.
What is the boy crisis?
The boy crisis is global, predominately in developed nations. It is a crisis of:
Mental health. As boys become young men, their suicide rate goes from equal to girls to five times greater.1 Boys are much more likely to be addicted to drugs, porn, and video games2 and to die from opioid overdose. They are also more likely to be in prison or to be on the street homeless. Even their IQs are dropping.3
Education. In the 53 largest developed nations, boys fall behind girls in almost every academic subject, especially reading and writing—the most significant predictors of success or failure. Boys are much less likely than girls to graduate from high school or college.4, 5
Physical health. Boys and men die sooner than females from 14 out of 15 of the leading causes of death. And their sperm counts are dropping, leading to less healthy children of both sexes.6
Purpose. Boys’ old sense of purpose—risking their lives in war, the most hazardous jobs, or being the sole breadwinner—has been replaced by a “purpose void.”
Shame. When boys in elementary school are already hearing phrases like “toxic masculinity” and seeing TV shows like Homer Simpson where dads are bumbling fools, they begin to feel ashamed they are male. By junior high, as they hear that they are part of the patriarchy that develops rules to benefit men at the expense of women and that fathers are often “deadbeat dads,” many feel ashamed they were born male.
Fertility. Female college graduates do not wish to marry and have children with male college dropouts, nor with males in unemployment lines or who live in their parents’ basements.
National Security. Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, revealed on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in 2019 that the peril posed by young males not looking for work, being addicted to drugs, and being unprepared for the transition to technology is not just an economic problem but also one of the top two national security problems.7
What are the primary causes?
The causes are multifaceted, and each facet magnifies the others. However, more than any other, the boy crisis resides where dads do not.
Boys who are dad-deprived are predominantly in developed or wealthier nations.8 Why? In more prosperous countries, the need to survive is low, allowing for a greater luxury of choice—the choice to divorce—which often means minimal dad involvement and the choice for a mom to have children without being married to the dad. Thus, 40% of U.S. women who have children do so without marriage.9
When the government in wealthier nations plays the role of substitute husband by subsidizing the single mom, this can reinforce dad deprivation. In all these cases, sons are less likely to have a same-sex role model and, as boys, have less propensity to express their feelings, especially to dads they seldom or never see or who abandoned them. The result is a weaker nuclear family without the three crucial contributors to children’s emotional security: moms, dads, and faith.
When I did the research for The Boy Crisis, I discovered that both boys and girls who are dad-deprived suffer on more than 50 metrics, but boys, without a same-sex role model, experience the deprivation more intensely. For example, by age nine, dad-deprived children have shorter telomeres (specific DNA-protein structures), which predicts a 14% shorter life expectancy; however, the telomeres of the dad-deprived boys are yet again 40% shorter for the boys than the girls.10
Boys without the boundary enforcement of a dad often fail to develop the resilience they need to succeed. They are more likely to be high school dropouts and unemployed, to bully and be bullied, and to lack both trust and empathy.11 Also, they are five times as likely to do drugs.12 These boys are rejected by girls, disrespected by boys, feel like failures, and experience isolation. They are hurt boys.
Boys who hurt us are hurt boys. Almost all school shooters are dad-deprived boys and/or have suffered from extremely high-conflict families or divorces.13 About 85% of our prisoners are dad-deprived.14
The young man who recently used his car to kill 14 people in New Orleans had been isolated and angry at his divorced parents, his own three divorces, and the resulting debts he could not pay.15 He was hurt, and he was outraged. Anger is vulnerability’s mask.
Some Solutions?
If dad deprivation is the primary problem, dad involvement is the primary solution. The best way to assure dad involvement is to keep the family strong and together—not by the need to survive but by choice. How?
While conducting the 30 years of couples’ workshops that led to Role Mate to Soul Mate, I was able to identify and help couples practice seven “love enhancements” that made their relationships strong and kept them together. The result of stronger families and fewer divorces is more dad involvement, which, in turn, mitigates the boy crisis.
The most important of the seven love enhancements is developing the ability to handle personal criticism from a loved one without being defensive. Almost as important is “filling the reservoir of love” by knowing how to appreciate your loved one with at least five levels of specificity and developing the discipline to do that consistently.
These love enhancements also lead to fewer “minimum security prison marriages” in which the parents stay together “for the children” but not for their love. Parents with “minimum security prison marriages” do not inspire their children to marry and have children.
Schools can also offer multiple solutions for all boys— especially dad-deprived boys. The following are four examples.
First, teachers. There should be an approximately equal number of male and female elementary school teachers so boys do not go from mother-only families to female-only elementary schools.
Second, vocational education. Instead of non-academically inclined boys dropping out of high school and experiencing a more than 20% unemployment rate in their early 20s, vocational education can give them a skill set that provides pride and purpose. Japan has extensive vocational education programs, with 99.6% of their graduates receiving jobs.16
A non-academically inclined boy is more likely to be motivated by concrete goals. He may be bored by physics and chemistry until he learns that he needs them to be a highly paid welder.
The economy is transitioning from muscle to microchip, with 1.7 million truck drivers predicted to be largely replaced by self-driving trucks.17 Vocational education is needed to facilitate the transition of young men.
Third, recess. Physically active boys can more easily be mentally focused. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) find that a minute of recess improves students’ test scores more than a minute of studying.18 Recess is especially important for boys who are not academically inclined.
Fourth, sports. Varsity sports need to be supplemented by intramural sports that include every boy. Tackle football needs to be replaced by flag football so taxpayer money is not used to send the message to boys that they can only be loved and honored by risking their bodies and brains. Coaches need to be informed of dad-deprived boys so they can be aware of how important they may be as role models.
Legislation can also help. Florida’s legislation contributed $70 million to encourage dad involvement.19 One way is to let dads know precisely how and why they are needed, and dads need to hear this from moms. Men can then replace being needed as warriors in combat with being “Father Warriors.” It is easier to love and be loved than to kill and be killed. States are increasingly replacing current laws—laws that give mothers of divorce the right to their children while fathers are left to fight for them—with laws giving priority to equal shared parenting.
President Trump, with an executive order, can create a White House Council on Boys and Men to make the boy crisis a national priority so millions of parents and sons do not feel isolated and ashamed—but instead supported to address a solution toward stronger families, more boy-friendly schools, and a greater economic and psychologically secure America. ?
Endnotes
1. National Center for Health Statistics. (2017). Table 30. Death rates for suicide, by sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age: United States, selected years 1950-2016. Health, United States, 2017. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ?
2. Liu, Q., Wang, Y., Wang, H., & Zhang, J. (2018). The reciprocal relationship between parental monitoring and Internet gaming disorder in adolescents: A three-wave longitudinal study. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, Article 95. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00095. ?
3. Flynn, J.R. (2006, January 24). IQ decline and Piaget: Does the rot start at the top? The Guardian. ?
4. OECD. (2015). The ABC of gender equality in education: Aptitude, behaviour, confidence, PISA. OECD Publishing. This statistic is based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results, which show that boys are more likely than girls to be low achievers across the three core subjects (reading, mathematics, and science) in most participating countries. ?
5. National Center for Education Statistics. (2025). Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/. PISA is coordinated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries conducted in the United States by NCES. ?
6. Xu, J., Murphy, S.L., Kochanek, K.D., & Bastian, B.A. (2016). Deaths: Final data for 2013. National Vital Statistics Reports, 64(2). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr64/nvsr 64_02.pdf. ?
7. CBS News. (2019, March 10). Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell: The “60 Minutes” interview. Retrieved from https://www.cbs.com/shows/video/MO66y6B7nzpwd_1nvhGG2rt6PEwlDO8k/. ?
8. United Nations. (2011). Men in families and family policy in a changing world. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Retrieved from https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/docs/men-in-families.pdf. ?
9. VerBruggen, R. (2025, January 14). How we ended up with 40 percent of children born out of wedlock. Institute for Family Studies. Retrieved from https://ifstudies.org/blog/how-we-ended-up-with-40-percent-of-children-born-out-of-wedlock. ?
10. American Academy of Pediatrics. (2017). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, 140(2), e20163245. https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/140/2/e20163245. ?
11. American Psychological Association. (2010, July 8). Boys more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD. EurekAlert! Retrieved from https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-07/apa-wil070810.php. ?
12. Knoester, C., & Haynie, D.L. (2005). Community context, social integration into family, and youth violence. Journal of Marriage and Family, 67(4), 1003-1013. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2005.00168.x. ?
13. Harris, J. (2025, January 14). What female mass shooters reveal about male ones. The Daily Beast. Retrieved from https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-female-mass-shooters-reveal-about-male-ones/. ?
14. Federal Bureau of Prisons. (2025). Inmate gender statistics. Retrieved from https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics /statistics_inmate_gender.jsp. ?
15. Miller, M. (2025, January 4). New Orleans attack: Shamsud-Din Jabbar and the implications of youth disconnection. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/04/us/new-orleans-attack-shamsud-din-jabbar-isis.html. ?
16. Fujimoto, T. (2025, January 14). Vocational schools on the move. Japan Today. Retrieved from https://japantoday.com/category/features/executive-impact/vocational-schools-on-the-move. ?
17. Kitroeff, N. (2016, September 24). Automated trucks could reshape the labor market. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-automated-trucks-labor-20160924/. ?
18. Zavacky, F., & Michael, S.L. (2017). The importance of recess in schools. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ?
19. Florida Governor’s Office. (2022, June 15). Governor Ron DeSantis signs groundbreaking legislation to support involved fatherhood. ?
Related Articles
Competence, Character, and Connection: Honoring Gregg Jantz
leadership psycGreetings to our AACC family! I look forward to engaging with you in this column, presenting concepts, and providing tips from the psychological world, with the hope of helping you in the arenas of leadership and organizational functioning. I want to...
Chiles v. Salazar: What’s at Stake for Christian Counselors
law, ethics, & liabilityOn October 7, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard the case of Chiles v. Salazar.1 This case began when Colorado enacted its “Minor Conversion Therapy Law” (MCTL) under the state’s Mental Health Practice Act,...
Early Career Development: Writing
shrink notesMental health professionals are called to be the voice of reason, wisdom, and hope to those that we serve in our offices. However, that voice sometimes needs to extend to communities that need our voice outside of our offices. Writing is one vehicle for...
Is it Time to Give the Mind its Decade in the Sun?
reflectionsHave you ever noticed how modern psychology seems to have given each of the five aspects of the person—the only five things a person can do—about one decade in the sun? I began studying psychology in the 1970s, during the heyday of behaviorism. There were...
Healing Through Interpersonal Neurotheology
looking inwardGod is the Grand Maestro of taking chaos and creating order. From the beginning of time, when “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep…” (Genesis 1:2, NKJV), He created our universe, our world, and all that is in...
Wrestling with Your Thoughts
the word appliedThe Lord cares for you and sees everything happening to you. He is never caught off guard and is always near. When my mind races with the pressures of life, He is my refuge. When enemies seek to take me out, He is my shield. When I lose sleep...
Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
from the heartWe live in an extraordinary time. With every new discovery about the brain, neuroscience opens another window into the wonder of God’s creation. It reveals more about how our minds work when we think, feel, and connect with others. We are image bearers...
Green Zone: Attachment and Flourishing for Christian Leaders
Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” – Psalm 17:8, NIV Does the Bible have anything to say about the building blocks for secure attachment in children? Could it be possible that these elements also lay the foundation for flourishing...
Flourishing in Ministry Leadership
Recently, I was driving to work by myself through Los Angeles traffic on a gray, overcast morning, when suddenly I drove into a thick bank of fog. Given how dry the L.A. basin is (technically, it is a desert), fog is somewhat unusual and unexpected. It was also...
Encouraging and Training Children to Flourish for a Lifetime
Nourishing society’s building blocks means we need to help families, especially children, learn to flourish. The COVID-19 pandemic tested the world’s mental stamina and overall health, and we failed on many levels. As a result, there has been a focus on flourishing...