Young men and women are moving in opposite directions
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Data of all kinds reveals a little-discussed, future-defining trend: Men and women are going separate ways.
Why it matters: The split is clear in politics, religion, education and the labor market. For the next generation, gender is becoming the biggest predictor of how you think, act and vote.
"There’s a much broader story here," says Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life. "Even after all the votes are tallied and we’ve moved on from the 2024 election, we’re not going to have resolved any of the cultural and relational tension between young men and young women."
- You see it in politics: Women are turning left, and men are turning right.
- You see it in religion: For the first time ever recorded in the U.S., young men are more religious than young women.
- You see it in education: There are 2.4 million more women on U.S. college campuses than men, the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) notes. And those degrees are often resulting in higher-wage jobs for women in big cities, a Pew Research Center analysis of census data found.
- You see it in the labor market: Wages and labor force participation have increased since the 1980s for college-educated men and women, and for working-class women. But they have stagnated for working-class men, who are also now significantly less likely to be employed compared to four decades ago, according to AIBM's analysis.
- You see it in visions for the future: Men are more likely than women to want marriage and kids, according to Pew. The percentage of 18- to 34-year-old women wanting kids has fallen to 45% versus 57% for men.
What we're watching: The polarization is even stronger among adults under 25, Cox notes. Social media content and algorithms may be one key reason.
- Men are constantly fed social media content that's negative toward women, and vice versa. Videos breaking down bad dates from the perspective of either the man or the woman are a viral example of that trend.
- Gen Zers are 15 points more likely than other generations to say social media has negatively impacted their outlook on men, and 10 points more likely to say so for women, Morning Consult finds.
The bottom line: "We live in a very individualistic culture, and, for a lot of people, the primary relationship they have is with a partner or a spouse," says Cox.
- For heterosexual couples, this polarization is making finding a partner trickier.
- "This has tremendous implications for how men and women relate to one another in the dating space," Cox says.
