Young men are becoming more conservative

The so-called Gen Z generation – roughly those aged between 12 and 27 – has a lot in common: environmental concerns, formative years shaped by a global recession and the pandemic and the first generation considered “digitally native”. But there appears to be one striking and widening divide: gender. Analysis by the FT of polling data finds Gen Z men increasingly identify as more conservative, as women become more liberal. In the US, women aged 18-30 are now 30 per cent more liberal than men of the same age. A similar trend exists in South Korea, Germany, the UK, China, Tunisia and Poland. Why? Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford University, gives four possible explanations: 1) economic resentments of the opposite sex; 2) social media “bubbles” that foster extremism; 3) cultural entrepreneurs (e.g. Andrew Tate) boosting those divisions and 4) cultural liberalisation encouraging people to speak out (#MeToo). The split could also help explain a fall in birth and marriage rates. As one woman posted on X: “I really really think this is the HUGE reason dating is so rough right now. The pool of available men whose politics don’t suck is actually a shallow puddle.”