I just thought, 'I'm clearly not good enough, am I?'
In a moment when the distance between boyhood and purposeful adulthood has grown measurably wider, former England manager Gareth Southgate has turned his attention from the pitch to the classroom, arguing that a generation of young men is falling through gaps that society has been slow to name. Since the pandemic, the number of young men outside education, employment, or training has risen at nearly six times the rate seen among young women — a disparity Southgate traces back to how boys are taught, and how little they are told they matter. His documentary and public advocacy call not for retreat from progress made elsewhere, but for a renewed willingness to look honestly at what is being lost.
- A 40% post-pandemic surge in young men classified as NEET — against just 7% for young women — signals a crisis that is accelerating faster than public conversation has caught up with it.
- The human cost is not abstract: young men like Taylor, 20, spiral from joblessness into daily drinking, fractured relationships, and suicidal ideation when silence from employers confirms their worst fears about their own worth.
- Southgate warns that the vacuum left by failing institutions is being filled by online influencers selling a corrosive masculinity built on money and dominance — a false map for young men with no better one in hand.
- His proposed remedies are deliberate and relational: gender-aware teaching methods, more male teachers as visible models of purpose, and a national network of mentors willing to step into young men's lives before the spiral begins.
- The broader argument is careful not to trade one crisis for another — Southgate insists the work of empowering women must continue, while society simultaneously recovers its willingness to ask what is happening to boys.
Gareth Southgate has spent the past year turning a familiar managerial instinct — that people can be better than their circumstances suggest — toward a problem far beyond football. His new documentary makes the case that a quiet crisis among young men is deepening, and that its roots reach back into the classroom.
The numbers are difficult to set aside. Since the pandemic, the share of men aged 16 to 24 classified as not in education, employment, or training has risen by 40 percent — nearly six times the increase recorded for women in the same group. Southgate argues this gap reflects something structural: that boys and girls learn differently, and that failing to recognise those differences leaves many boys disengaged early, setting off a cascade that ends in unemployment, lost identity, and in some cases, a will to disappear entirely.
To illustrate this, Southgate travelled to Middlesbrough and sat with three young men living inside that cascade. One of them, Taylor, lost a warehouse job and spent five months hearing nothing back from employers — no rejection, no feedback, just silence. He began drinking daily, withdrew from the people around him, and eventually reached a point where he no longer wanted to be alive. What began to pull him back was simpler than any policy: someone sat with him, named his strengths, and told him he was worth something.
That encounter shapes Southgate's central proposal — a national movement of mentors, experienced men willing to volunteer time and presence to young men who have no one pointing them toward possibility. He is also calling for more men to enter teaching, to stand as living evidence that purpose is achievable. And he is explicit about what he is arguing against: the online influencers who offer young men a hollow script of dominance and wealth, filling the space that better guidance should occupy.
Southgate was careful to say this is not a competition. The work of empowering women is unfinished and essential. But somewhere, he suggested, society quietly stopped watching what was happening to boys — and the old pressures to be strong, self-sufficient, and silent did not dissolve; they simply became more isolating. His documentary carries the same conviction he brought to football: that with the right belief, the right structure, and someone willing to show up first, people can find their way back.
Gareth Southgate, the former England football manager, has spent the last year thinking about a problem that sits outside the pitch: the growing crisis among young men who feel adrift, unemployed, and increasingly isolated. His new documentary, released this week, argues that part of the solution begins in classrooms—with a fundamental rethinking of how boys are taught.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Southgate made a case that has become harder to ignore. The statistics are stark. Since the pandemic, the number of men aged 16 to 24 classified as not in education, employment, or training has jumped by 40 percent. For women in the same age group, the figure rose just 7 percent. The gap is widening, and Southgate believes the roots run deep—back to school, back to how young people are taught and what they're told about themselves.
"There are fundamental differences between how boys and girls learn," Southgate told the BBC, speaking with the careful precision of someone who has spent decades working with young athletes. He wasn't arguing for separation or regression. Rather, he suggested that recognizing these differences—and adapting teaching methods accordingly—might help more boys stay engaged, perform better academically, and avoid the cascade of problems that follow when they fall behind. Poor school performance leads to behavioral issues, which leads to unemployment, which leads to something darker: a loss of identity, a sense of worthlessness, and in some cases, a turn toward alcohol or worse.
For the documentary, Southgate traveled to Middlesbrough and sat down with three young men living this reality. One of them, Taylor, is 20 years old. He spent five months looking for work after losing a warehouse job. The silence from employers—no rejection letters, no feedback, no explanation—ate at him. "I just thought, 'I'm clearly not good enough, am I?'" he told Southgate. The joblessness spiraled. He began drinking most days, snapping at friends and family, and eventually reached a point where he didn't want to be alive anymore. What pulled him back, in part, was someone taking time to listen, to point out his strengths, to tell him he was worth something.
This is where Southgate's second argument takes shape. He's calling for a "national movement" of mentors—experienced men willing to volunteer their time, to step into the lives of young men who have no one else pointing them toward possibility. He's also pushing for more men to enter teaching, to become visible examples of what a life of purpose can look like. And he's warning against the noise of online influencers who peddle a hollow version of success: money, dominance, the kind of masculinity that leaves young men chasing an impossible image.
Southgate was careful to frame this not as a zero-sum argument. The work to empower girls and women is vital and ongoing, he said. But somewhere along the way, he suggested, society stopped paying attention to what was happening to boys. The historic weight of expectation—the pressure to be strong, to provide, to never ask for help—hasn't disappeared. It's just become more isolating in a world where the old paths to employment and identity have fractured.
There's an optimism threaded through his message, though. He spoke of wanting a "story of hope," of believing that with the right mentorship, the right teaching, the right cultural shift, young men can find their way. It's the same belief he carried into football—that people can change, that they can be better than their circumstances suggest, that someone has to believe in them first.
Citações Notáveis
There are fundamental differences between how boys and girls learn, and we may need a different approach when educating young men compared to young women— Gareth Southgate
We've taken our eyes off some of the issues that men face and we have to start thinking about how we address those, as well as the issues for women and girls— Gareth Southgate
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Southgate think teaching boys differently is the answer? Isn't that just accepting the problem rather than solving it?
He's not saying accept it. He's saying the current system isn't working for a lot of boys, and pretending there are no differences in how they learn or what they need is part of why. It's about meeting them where they are.
But the real issue seems to be unemployment and mental health, not pedagogy. Can changing how you teach math really fix a 40 percent spike in young men out of work?
Not by itself. But Southgate's argument is that it starts there. If boys disengage from school, fall behind, feel like failures by age 14, they're already on a path. The teaching piece is upstream. The mentorship and male role models are downstream.
He mentions online influencers selling a false version of success. How much of this crisis is actually about culture—what young men are being told they should want?
That's the part he seems most concerned about. The influencers aren't creating the problem, but they're making it worse by offering a shortcut that doesn't exist. Money and dominance as the measure of a man. When you're 20 and unemployed, that message hits different.
Taylor's story—the drinking, the suicidal thoughts—that's severe. Is Southgate suggesting mentorship alone could have prevented that?
Not alone. But he's saying someone paying attention, believing in him, giving him honest feedback—that mattered. It didn't fix everything, but it changed something. And right now, a lot of young men have no one doing that.