The emergence of a political divide between young men and young women has been one of the most-discussed developments in recent politics. President Donald Trump won 56 percent of men under 30 in November, compared to just 41 percent four years earlier. It’s not just the US, either. Around the globe, young men are more likely to support right-wing parties and politicians than their female counterparts. South Korean men and women, for example, are some of the furthest apart in the world: Voters under 30 had a gender gap of 25 percentage points in support for deposed President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The causes of this divide are complex and have been endlessly discussed. There’s social media and the existence of “manosphere” content creators like Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan, who promote right-wing parties and ideas. Additionally, widespread isolation, especially for the youth, means that social media now has an outsized impact, leading to a distorted public sphere where preferences are distorted by biased algorithms. There is, of course, a gendered backlash aspect: Women have made notable advances in the public sphere over the last five years, and Trump has capitalized on anxieties about such gains, as well as longer-simmering grievances and tensions, to advance his reactionary agenda.

But while much of the debate has centered on electoral strategy, social issues like transgender rights or Me Too, and chastising activists for their unproductive work, the truth is somewhat more nuanced. Younger men are more conservative on some issues, but men’s and women’s differing votes don’t seem to be based on policy differences: Surveys of American voters point to men and women largely agreeing on which issues they find most important, and they mostly seem to trust the same parties on each of those issues.

The best way to understand the growing gender divide isn’t the culture war. It’s how the economy has shifted over the past half-century.

Flying solo

To understand the divergence in values between men and women, one has to understand where fundamental values — such as the support for democracy as opposed to far-right parties — come from. At their core, these develop not from heady cost-benefit analysis of policy, but from prior experiences, particularly during formative years (the “14 to 24” decade).

Let’s start with the most fundamental experience: economic security. Support for democracy relies on democracies providing material benefits. And so, economic inequality and lack of economic growth — which have been accelerating in recent decades — are both associated with widespread turns to the radical, anti-democratic, misogynistic right.

In the United States and Europe, for example, rising wealth inequality and slowing economic growth

© Vox