Reading Comprehension: Exercise-5

Overview:

Directions (1-10): Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions. Certain words/phrases are given in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.

At first glance, the patriarchy appears to be thriving. More than 90% of Presidents and Prime Ministers are male, as are all nearly big corporate bosses. Men dominate finance, technology, films, sports, music, and even stand-up comedy. In much of the world they still enjoy social and legal privileges simply because they have a Y chromosome. So it might seem odd to worry about the plight of men. Yet there is plenty of cause for concern. Men cluster at the bottom as well at the top. Poorly educated men in rich countries have had difficulty coping with the enormous changes in the labour market and the home over the past half-century. As technology and trade have devalued brawn, less-educated men have struggled to find a role in the workplace. Women, on the other hand, are surging into expanding sectors such as health care and education, helped by their superior skills. As education has become more important, boys have also fallen behind girls in school (except at the very top). Men who lose jobs in manufacturing often never work again. And men without work find it hard to support a family. The result for low-skilled men is a poisonous combination of no job, no family and no prospects.
Some tend to focus on economics. Shrinking job opportunities for men, they say are entrenching poverty and destroying families. in America pay for men with only a high school certificate fell by 21% in real terms between 1979 and 2013. For women with similar qualifications, it raised by 3%. Around a fifth of working-age American men with only a high school have no job. But both economic and social changes are to blame and the two causes reinforce each other. Moreover, these problems are likely to get worse. Technology will disrupt more industries, creating benefits for society but rendering workers who fail to update their skills redundant. The OECD, a think tank, predicts that the absolute number of single-parent households will continue to rise in nearly all rich countries. boys, who grow up without fathers are more likely to have trouble forming lasting relationships, creating a cycle of male dysfunction.
What can be done? Part of the solution lies in a change in cultural attitudes. Over the past generation, men have learned that they need to help with childcare and have changed their behaviour. Women have learned that they can be surgeons and physicists not at cost of motherhood. Policymakers also need to lend a hand, because foolish laws are making the problems worse. Governments need to recognise that boys underachievement is a serious problem and set about fixing it. Some sensible policies that are good for everybody are particularly good for boys with more structure and a better chance of developing verbal and social skills. Countries with successful vocational systems such as Germany have done a better job motivating non-academic boys and guiding them into jobs, but policymakers need to reinvent vocational education for an age when trainers are more likely to get jobs in hospitals than factories. The growing equality of the genders is one of the biggest achievements of the post-war era people have greater opportunities than ever before to achieve their ambitions regardless of their gender. but some even have failed to cope with this new world. It is time to give them a hand.