But while a focus on reading tends to highlight the relative under-performance of boys, they do not lag behind in every respect.
Many observers expect mobile telehealth to take off in mobile-loving South Korea and Japan, but to lag behind in America, where consumers are more likely to raise privacy concerns.
Nokia also no longer can afford to lag behind in the U.S. market, a large and profitable handset market, in part because the U.S. has the leading software-development talent for mobile devices.
This is all still speculation, but if Apple chooses to wait until the iPhone 6 to showcase NFC, it will lag behind in the most important development in smartphone technology since the touchscreen.
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The tools to secure these new devices always lag behind the new releases, forcing the enterprise to either accept new devices before they can be fully secured, or lag behind in adoption of new technology.
Americans still lag behind citizens in other developed nations in how they use their phones.
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Almost every other neighbour is building new ports or expanding old ones, but Indonesia's lag far behind in efficiency and productivity.
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Currently Asian countries lag behind others in environmental regulations, relying instead on voluntary initiatives like the one introduced in Singapore last year.
This is particularly alarming for obese women, whose wages are significantly affected by their weight and who, as females, already lag behind men in retirement savings, when research shows women need to save more than men.
While the United States was once a pioneer in developing and commercializing clean energy technologies, from solar cells to nuclear power, we now lag behind our competitors in Asia and Europe in the production of virtually all clean technologies.
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We lag behind other nations in the quality of our math and science education.
They're heavier and bulkier, and generally tend to lag behind regular notebooks in features.
No one will thank them if they lag behind the US in their pro-Iran, anti-Israel policies.
Muslims as a group lag behind other Britons in qualifications, employment, housing and income (see chart).
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Italian clubs lag far behind those in England and Spain in expanding alternative sources of income, most notably merchandising.
Everyone becomes more cautious with their money when the economy underperforms, and it is common knowledge that jobs lag behind other indicators in a recovery.
Instead, Republicans continue to lag well behind Democrats in winning the votes of nonwhites, even as the white share of the population continues to decline.
But before Westerners begin pointing fingers at Asian countries for contributing to greenhouse gases and other anti-sustainability actions, it should be understood that while they may be growing in their contributions to deleterious effects on the earth, they still lag far behind western nations in terms of per capita production of Carbon Dioxide, the greenhouse gas identified as the greatest contributor to climate change.
The GE engine tended to lag behind the Pratt engine in safety and reliability.
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And, according to Toldson, black men still lag behind their white counterparts in terms of attendance at top-rated universities.
Although the Portuguese have taken readily to mobile phones, they lag well behind other Europeans in using the Internet (see chart 5).
The lag behind India and China in economic indicators is reducing.
The companies have also strayed from their mission of helping people afford their own home: they lag behind regular mortgage banks in funding first-time home-buyers, especially those from ethnic minorities.
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Though banking standards have certainly risen a lot in recent years, they still lag behind those of America and the European Union, particularly in terms of transparency.
The real problem is that our cultural beliefs about workplace practices lag behind technological and other changes in the workplace.
Malay Singaporeans may still lag behind the Chinese and Indians in educational achievement but, with additional tuition, they have made enormous progress under our system of meritocracy.
Northern Ireland's building sector continued to significantly lag behind the rest of the UK in the three months to the end of March, a survey has said.
Although the bond business isn't as lucrative, it is a viable alternative for Hong Kong-based Chinese investment banks, which lag behind their more established global peers in sectors such as asset management.
According to his system of scoring these indicators, France and Germany both lag some way behind Britain and America in their treatment of minority investors, but have made improvements in the past year.
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