They're ill-equipped for work, too

The growing image of men as feckless, inarticulate and unemployable receives robust confirmation in other reports today.

Men are seen to be more impulsive than women, less organised and experience greater difficulty in reading.

Women are better qualified than men, who have a "mental block" over training, and the gap is likely to widen, according to vocational education specialists.

The depressing and increasingly familiar profile of the useless male emerges in reports by the North Yorkshire Training and Enterprise Council. They show that twice as many men as women are enrolling for vocational courses at colleges in the area - a trend which the council believes reflects the national situation.

Commenting on the findings, Peter Stratton, a psychologist at Leeds University, argued that men were falling behind because of their general approach to life.

"Research shows that women are more likely to plan ahead and prepare for what they want to do," he said.

"Men are more impulsive, looking for activities that provide high levels of sensation, taking risks and taking things as they come rather than planning. Men are therefore less likely to start on something which offers long-term satisfaction. They are less likely to book in advance for courses, so they may well be finding the courses they want to do are fully booked."

Dr Stratton said that college enrolments might also be affected by the different experiences men and women have at school. "Boys are more likely to have had trouble academically, especially with reading, and generally find school more uncomfortable than girls," he said. "As adults they are more likely to find it difficult to read things they don't find immediately interesting.

"Men may well therefore be put off by the demands of reading in adult courses - and also by the needs of communication. Women are more verbally fluent. Eight times as many men as women suffer from stammering."

Lucy Adams of North Yorkshire TEC pointed out that men traditionally received much of their training at work, but as male-dominated industries decline men have to start organising themselves to learn new skills.

Sandra Furby, of Future Prospects, a training organisation, who helped to retrain men after the closure of the ABB carriage works in York last May with the loss of 700 jobs, said that many males seemed to have a "mental block" when it came to training.

She added however that while the men had not been keen to get involved at first, once they were persuaded, their response was "wonderful".

Ms Adams said that motivating men to go on courses was a major challenge for society. The TEC would devote increasing resources to see if courses could be made more attractive to men, "but men have got to meet us half- way".

She added: "If men want even to keep up with women, they've got to start learning in their own time. All our research shows that within days, far from being a chore, it will become one of the most satisfying experiences that one can have."

In a study of the local labour market, the TEC found that the decline in the male economic activity rate was mainly explained by men giving up the search for work before the official retirement age of 65.

There had been a significant increase however in the proportion of women of all ages up to 60 in the labour market. That was explained by the increasing number of jobs in the service sector and more part-time work and self-employment.