School Drop-out Rates, (Canada) higher for males than females

From Statistics Canada, Education, Training and learning section
The majority of drop-outs are young men. Of the 212,000 drop-outs in Canada in 2004-2005, 135,000 were men (Figure 3). The rates of dropping out among young men was 12.2% in 2004-2005, compared with 7.2% for young women. For both men and women, the drop-out rate has fallen from 1990-1991, when they were 19.2% and 14.0%, respectively.


 Thousand of High school drop-outs(1), by gender, Canada, 1990-1991 to 2004-2005

1 Defined as 20-24-year-olds without a high school diploma and not in school.

The over-representation of males among drop-outs is not new. However, the share of school leavers who are male has increased in recent years. In 1990-1991, a sizable majority of drop-outs were men (58.3%), but by 2004-2005, that proportion had increased to 63.7%. This was not because more men were dropping out – in fact, there has been a decrease in the number of male drop-outs – but rather because the decrease in the rate of dropping out has been larger for young women.
The finding that there are more male than female drop-outs holds across provinces. This tendency is strongest in Quebec, where in 2004-2005 seven in ten drop-outs were young men.
As noted in the October 2004 issue of Education Matters,2 the reasons behind the decision to drop out of high school reported by 20-year-olds in the Youth in Transition Survey differed somewhat between males and females. Young men were less likely to be engaged in school than young women and were more likely to report wanting to work/earn money as a reason for dropping out of high school. In contrast, teenage pregnancy plays a larger role in the decision to drop out of high school for young women. According to the Youth in Transition Survey, 15.9% of female drop-outs left school because they were pregnant or because they needed to tend to their child.3
School culture plays a major role in the "engagement" factor for all students; however, with the decreased  number of male teachers and administrators, particularly in secondary schools, the culture is naturally going to bend toward female interests, and female expectations and female activities and methods of accomplishing joint projects.