The political gender gap is widening among Gen Z voters, with more young women leaning left and more young men leaning right, a new analysis suggests.
Some 40% of young women identified as liberal in 2023 compared to 29% in 1999, according to data cited by the Brookings Institution, which examined the growing difference among young people between the ages 18 to 29. Not only that, more Gen Z women are considering themselves to be feminists and have embraced anti-patriarchal values over the past decade, the report reveals.
The shift likely results from the “recall of abortion rights,” says Elaine Kamarck, founding director of the Center for Effective Public Management and lead researcher of the Brookings report, published earlier this month. In fact, February polling data by the policy research group KFF found that 67% of reproductive-aged women living in states where abortion is banned said they believed abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
“When you take rights away from someone, it is so much more powerful than giving them rights,” Kamarck says. “It’s felt on a very visceral level — and I think that’s why you see young women getting very, very, much more engaged politically.”
The Democratic Party has long used reproductive choice to appeal to voters, according to Alison Gash, a professor of political science at the University of Oregon. It’s not surprising that more young women voters are leaning Democratic for that reason, although Gen Z tends to approach politics from a policy perspective rather than as party loyalists, she says.
In stark contrast, young men are increasingly identifying with the Republican Party, according to Brookings’ analysis of data from Harvard Kennedy School and other research agencies. In 2020, 42% of young men identified themselves as Democrats, compared to 20% that identified as Republican. Today, 32% of Gen Z men identify as Democrats and 29% as Republican. Young men are also less likely than women to identify as feminists and have become more patriarchal in their orientations, even more so than older generations of men. Younger men’s top concerns focus on competition, honor and bravery, while women express worries over mental health, sexual harassment and child abuse and neglect, according to Brookings.
Brookings’ report did not delve into the percentages of young women leaning right. Nor was it published in time to factor in former President Donald Trump’s historic conviction Thursday on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Gash says she suspects that the Republican Party is deploying narratives to Gen Z men about them being accepted and having value, which is both appealing and “really tantalizing.” The Republican Party, she adds, knows that there’s going to be attachment to those narratives, especially for young men, who might be susceptible to depression and feel alienated. According to a 2023 report by the nonprofit Equimundo, 40% of all men in the U.S. show symptoms of depression, and men ages 18 to 23 “have the least optimism for their futures and the lowest levels of social support.”
“The conservative narratives are appealing to folks who feel like they don’t belong,” Gash says, and “especially white men feel they’re losing ground.” For decades, certain populations of white men have “been able to benefit from certain structures for a long time,” she says, “and maybe now they feel like they’re not benefiting from those structures as much as they have been in the past.”
Younger men’s stagnant political views compared to older men — who have become slightly more liberal over time— is what stood out the most for Jordan Muchnick, a senior research assistant at Brookings also involved in writing the report.
Muchnick, who is 26 and himself Gen Z, says young men’s current political beliefs correlate with the societal changes that are impacting them — with nearly half of young men saying they experience discrimination, and 63% identifying themselves as single in July 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. This is a significant difference compared to Gen Z women, where only 34% identify as single.
“It does go back to that main issue of young men – who feel like they’ve been excluded by society – finding a home with [the] very unsavory far right,” Muchnick said. Because of forces online and social media, “they’re constantly being inundated with this messaging of patriarchy…and because they’re being inundated with this new system, they’ll disconnect from society.”
That notion of men feeling discriminated against “comes out of the Evangelical core of the Republican party,” Kamarck adds, which has historically favored traditional gender roles. With women no longer submitting to feminine gender role practices, a big societal shift is happening. “We are just beginning to sort of face up to all disruptions that it’s causing — and for some people it’s really uncomfortable,” she says.
According to Brookings’ research team, the widening political gender gap can impact various corners of society, including relationships. With men becoming more isolated, some studies forecast that 45% of prime working age women will be single by 2030 — “the largest share in history,” the Brookings’ analysis cites. (Out of all races, the report finds that as of July 2022 the highest rate of singleness is among Black people, at 47%— due to factors including high incarceration rates of Black men and unequal economic outcomes, Kamarck says.)
Against that backdrop, experts agree that more young women are mobilizing to protect their rights. While research shows that older citizens are more likely to vote — especially during Presidential elections — Oregon’s Gash says both political parties are going to target Gen Z voters for the upcoming election. Gen Z’s voting turnout was relatively high in the 2022 midterm election compared to how millennials and Gen X turned out for their first midterm elections.
The Democratic party “has not been especially good at being thoughtful and deliberate about how to attract young voters,” she said. “To the degree that they’re getting female voters — it’s simply because this exogenous shock [of] Dobbs has catalyzed young women just on their own.”
On the other hand, Gash says the conservative groups “are doing a good job” of harnessing young voters, especially young men, through groups like Turning Point USA, a nonprofit that advocates for conservative politics in education systems. The Democratic party, she adds, has largely taken college-age voters for granted.
Additional data cited by Brookingsfound that Biden’s lead among young women is 33 points compared to his lead with men, which has dropped to six points since 2020. Gash says young women are more likely to prioritize reproductive choice than the economy, whereas young men may prioritize the economy as a top voting issue. Even so, Gash concludes that both political parties still haven’t fully “figured out a way to tap into Gen Z.”
The Brookings authors say they hope the report will raise awareness that some young men are feeling isolated or disenfranchised.
Some of those Gen Z men are vulnerable to manipulation, especially by social media influencers, Mushnick says.
Among men, there’s plenty of popular online far right figures who are “not in any way” promoting behaviors that would be safe for women, he says. “There has to be a way to give men back some sort of purpose.”
