A recent national study looked at why girls now outnumber boys in Canadian universities (Photo: Claire Brown)
In a national study released last week, researchers attempted to explain why girls now outnumber boys in Canadian universities. Results indicate boys are not trying as hard as girls to achieve grades necessary for university, and many boys don’t want to go to university at all.
Torben Drewes, an economist at Trent University who examined the data from the study, said that before 1988 men always outnumbered women in post-secondary studies. Now the reverse is true.
“It isn’t a question of why so many women are going to university, but why so many men are not,” Drewes said.
Studies of Canadian high schools show that, on average, girls are studying more than boys and boys are more likely to skip class.
“Boys are not trying as hard simply because many do not have the intention to go to university,” Drewes said.
Many boys are choosing instead to discontinue their studies and go directly into the workplace, which Drewes said is not necessarily a bad thing. However, he said he wonders what implications this trend will have for the future.
“What will the world look like 20 years from now?” he asks. “There was a time when women could not go beyond the position of a nurse in the medical field, but now opportunities have expanded for women to use their degrees in a variety of fields.”
Thomas Sharpe, a second-year music student at the University of Guelph, said he feels as though he studies less than female students.
“Most of the girls I know are more on task and focused than me or most of my male friends,” Sharpe said. “There are exceptions, of course, but the pattern is noticeable.”
Sharpe said he thinks this may simply be a shift before reaching a balance.
“Perhaps this is just a period of time where women are going to catch up with men and some form of equality will be reached in the next 10 years or so,” Sharpe said.