The behavior gap between rich and poor children, starting at very early ages, is now a well-known piece of social science. Entering kindergarten, high-income children not only know more words and can read better than poorer children but they also have longer attention spans, better-controlled tempers and more sensitivity to other children.

从很小的时候，富孩子和穷孩子就出现了行为差距。在这方面，一篇相关的社会科学论文现已变得众所周知。走进幼儿园，你会发现富孩子不仅比穷孩子认识更多的字，阅读能力更强，而且拥有更长的注意力周期，能够更好地控制脾气，对其他孩子更加敏感。

All of which makes the comparisons between boys and girls in the same categories fairly striking: The gap in behavioral skills between young girls and boys is even bigger than the gap between rich and poor.

所有这一切使得同一个类别中男孩和女孩的比较更加引人注目：小女孩和小男孩的行为技能差异甚至比富孩子和穷孩子的差异还要大。

By kindergarten, girls are substantially more attentive¹, better behaved, more sensitive, more persistent², more flexible and more independent than boys, according to a new paper from Third Way, a Washington research group. The gap grows over the course of elementary school and feeds into academic gaps between the sexes. By eighth grade, 48 percent of girls receive a mix of A’s and B’s or better. Only 31 percent of boys do.

华盛顿研究机构第三条道路(Third Way)最新发布的一份研究报告显示，上幼儿园时，女孩比男孩更加专心，更守规矩，更具韧性，更加灵活和独立。这种差异在小学期间进一步扩大，加大了两性之间的成绩差距。到了八年级，48%的女孩获得A和B，甚或更好的成绩组合。只有31%的男孩能够获得这样的成绩.

And in an economy that rewards knowledge, the academic struggles of boys turn into economic struggles. Men’s wages are stagnating³. Men are much more likely to be idle — neither working, looking for work nor caring for family — than they once were and much more likely to be idle than women.

在这样一个奖励知识的经济体中，男孩的学业困境往往会转化为经济困境。男性的工资正陷于停滞。与往昔相比，男性现在更有可能无所事事——既没有工作可做，也不找工作和照顾家人。他们无事可做的可能性也要远远大于女性。

We reported last week that the United States had lost its once-enormous global lead in middle-class pay, based on international income surveys over the last three decades. After-tax median income in Canada appears to have been higher last year than the same measure in this country. The poor in Canada and much of western Europe earn more than the poor here.

我们此前的报道说，针对过去30年的国际收入调查显示，在全球范围内，美国中产阶级的薪酬已经失去了昔日的巨大领先优势。加拿大去年的税后收入中位数似乎高于美国。加拿大和西欧许多国家的穷人要比美国穷人挣得更多。

These depressing trends have many causes, but the social struggles of men and boys are an important one. If the United States is going to build a better-functioning economy than the one we’ve had over the last 15 years, we’re going to have to solve our boy problems.

这些令人沮丧的趋势是由多种原因导致的，但男性和男孩的社会困境是其中重要一环。如果美国打算建立一种比过去15年运行得更好的经济，我们就必须解决美国男孩的问题。

To put it another way, the American economy — for all its troubles (and all of the lingering sexism) — looks to be doing pretty well when you focus on girls. The portion of women earning a four-year college degree has jumped more than 75 percent over the last quarter-century, in line with what has happened in other rich countries. Median inflation-adjusted female earnings⁴ are up almost 35 percent over the same span, census⁵ data show — while male earnings, incredibly, haven’t risen at all.

从另一个角度说，如果只关注女孩，你就会发现美国经济的表现看起来相当不错，尽管它面临种种麻烦，以及挥之不去的性别歧视问题。一如其他富裕国家，在过去25年中，获得四年制大学学位的女性人数飙涨了75%以上。人口普查数据显示，剔除通胀因素后的女性收入中位数在同一时期上涨了约35%。而令人难以置信的是，男性收入根本就没有增长。

“We know we’ve got a crisis, and the crisis is with boys,” said Elaine Kamarck, a resident scholar at Third Way and a former Clinton administration official. “We’re not quite sure why it’s happening.”

“我们知道我们面临着一场危机，这场危机发生在男孩身上，”第三条道路常驻学者，前克林顿政府官员伊莱恩·卡马克(Elaine Kamarck)说。“我们不太明白为什么会发生这种事。”

Two of the leading theories involve single-parent families and schools. The number of single-parent families has surged over the last generation, and the effect seems to be larger on boys in those families than girls. Girls who grow up with only one parent — typically a mother — fare almost as well on average as girls with two parents. Boys don’t.

两个主要理论涉及单亲家庭和学校。在过去一代人的时间里，单亲家庭数量急剧增长。在这类家庭中，男孩受到的负面影响似乎大于女孩。平均而言，单亲（通常是一个母亲）家庭女孩的学业表现几乎跟双亲家庭女孩一样好。而男孩做不到这一点。

But the trends seem too broad for family structure to be the only cause. That’s where schools come in.

但这些趋势似乎过于广泛，以至于家庭结构不可能是唯一原因。所以还需要探讨学校教育因素。

Girls enter school with a lead on boys, and schools then fail to close the gaps. Instead, they increase. The behavioral advantage that girls have over boys in kindergarten, based on teachers’ assessments⁶ of their students, are even larger in fifth grade.

进入学校时，女孩的素质本就高于男生，但在上学期间，这种差距不仅没有消失，反而变大了。根据教师对学生的评估，到五年级时，女孩在幼儿园期间相对于男孩的行为优势进一步增大。

By then, the average girl is at the 60th percentile of an index of social and behavioral skills, while the average boy is at only the 40th percentile, according to Claudia Buchmann of Ohio State and Thomas DiPrete of Columbia, the authors of the new paper. That gap of 20 percentage points is larger than the 14-point gap between poor and not poor children or the 15-point gap between white and black children.

俄亥俄州立大学(Ohio State)的克劳迪娅·布赫曼(Claudia Buchmann)和哥伦比亚大学(Columbia University)的托马斯·迪普雷特(Thomas DiPrete)最新发布的论文显示，到这时候，女孩通常处于一个社交和行为技能指数的第60百分位，而男孩通常只处于第40百分位。20个百分点的差距不仅大于穷孩子和富孩子的差距（14个百分点），也大于白人小孩和黑人小孩的差距（15个百分点）。

These behavior measures are subjective⁷, of course, based on the views of teachers across the country in very different classrooms. Yet it’s clear that the measures reflect something real, because the behavior differences later translate into academic differences. By high school, even advanced math and science classes now have more girls than boys. At college graduation ceremonies around the country this spring, women in caps and gowns will easily outnumber men.

这些行为评估主要基于全美各地教师对差异明显的学生群体的观察，当然带有主观性。但它们显然在一定程度上反映出了现实情况，因为这些行为差异随后就转化为学业差异。到了高中，就连选修高等数学和科学课的女生现在都比男生多。在今年春天全美各地的毕业典礼上，身穿学位服的女生数量肯定会明显多于男生。

The experts who study the subject disagree on the solutions. Some, like Ms. Buchmann and Mr. DiPrete, point out that boys still do quite well in the best-performing schools. When good grades bring high status, boys respond. To the researchers in this camp, the answer involves improving schools, which will have a disproportionate effect on boys, rather than changing schools to be more attuned⁸ to boys’ needs.

研究这个问题的专家对解决方案持不同意见。布赫曼和迪普雷特等人指出，在成绩最好的学校，男孩的表现还是相当不错的。当好成绩带来高地位时，男孩会予以回应。在这个阵营的研究人员看来，解决方案在于改善学校教育（这将对男孩产生更大的影响），而不是改变学校教学来迎合男孩的需要。

Others, like Christina Hoff Sommers, argue that today’s education system fails to acknowledge the profound differences between boys and girls. It asks boys to sit still for hours every day and provides them with few role models in front of the classroom. Just as the dearth⁹ of female science professors hampers¹⁰ would-be female science majors in college, the dearth of male fourth-grade teachers creates problems for 10-year-old boys.

其他人，比如克里斯蒂娜·霍夫·索莫斯(Christina Hoff Sommers)，则认为今天的教育体制没有认识到男孩和女孩的深刻差异。它要求男孩每天一动不动地坐上好几个小时，而且几乎没有给他们提供站立在教室前面的行为榜样。正如女科学教授的稀缺妨碍女生报考科学类专业一样，四年级男教师的稀缺也给10岁的男孩带来了一堆问题。

My own sense is that both sides have a point — and that their ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. Experimenting with all kinds of solutions will offer better answers than we now have.

我自己的感觉是，两个阵营各有其道理，他们的想法也并非相互排斥。用各种解决方案来试验，将带来比现在更好的答案。

The problems that stem from gender¹¹ have become double-edged. The old forms of sexism, while greatly diminished, still constrain¹² women. The job market exacts harsh financial and career penalties on anyone who decides to work part time or take time off, and the workers who do so are overwhelmingly female. That’s a big part of the reason that the top ranks of corporate¹³ America, Silicon¹⁴ Valley and the government remain dominated by men.

这些源自性别的问题已经成为一把双刃剑。传统形式的性别歧视虽然大大减少，但依然束缚着女性。就业市场往往会惩罚那些决定兼职工作或休假的雇员，导致他们的收入和职业生涯严重受损，而有此打算的员工以女性居多。这正是美国工商界、硅谷和政府部门的最高层依然由男性主宰的重要原因之一。

But men have their own challenges. As the economy continues to shift away from brawn¹⁵ and toward brains, many men have struggled with the transition.

但男性也面临他们自己的挑战。随着经济模式持续变迁，越来越多的就业机会正在从体力劳动转向脑力劳动，许多男性由此陷于困境。

“Boys are getting the wrong message about what you need to do to be successful,” Ms. Buchmann says. “Traditional gender roles are misguiding boys. In today’s economy, being tough and being strong are not what leads to success.”

“在怎么做才能成功这个问题上，男孩正在获得错误的信息，”布赫曼说。“传统的性别角色正在误导男生。在今天的经济中，坚韧和强壮已不再是获取成功的保证。”

The problem doesn’t simply involve men trying to overcome the demise¹⁶ of a local factory or teenage boys getting into trouble. It involves children so young that most haven’t even learned the word “gender.” Yet their gender is already starting to cast a long shadow over their lives.

这个问题不仅仅涉及那些正在努力克服当地工厂倒闭这一难关的成年男性，或者陷入麻烦的十几岁男孩。它还波及非常年幼的孩子，其中大多数甚至还没有学过“性别”这个单词。不过，这些男孩的性别已经开始给他们的人生投下一道长长的阴影。