There is a consensus in research that young generations hold more progressive values than older generations, especially on cultural issues such as gender equality. Contrasting with this consensus, studies find that young men have recently developed increasingly conservative attitudes toward certain gender equality measures. Addressing this paradox, we argue that increasing labor market competition between young men and women explains young men’s more recent conservative attitudes toward gender equality. To test this argument, we investigate young men’s attitudes toward different aspects of gender equality over time. Specifically, analyzing repeated cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data from several Western democracies since the 1990s, we develop and test several implications of our argument. Our findings corroborate our theoretical argument, suggesting that progressive generational value change cannot be taken for granted; young men are vulnerable to weakening support of gender equality when faced with increasing gender labor market competition.

Paper - Fighting for Privilege? The Impact of Labor Market Competition on Young Men's Support for Gender Equality (pdf, 660Ko)

Speaker: 

Gefjon Off, University of Hamburg 

She is a postdoctoral researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Hamburg. She did her PhD in Political Science at Gothenburg University, with a research stay at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and completed a previous postdoc at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. Her research lies at the intersection of research on gender and politics, political behavior, and comparative politics. Her PhD dissertation explores antifeminism and radical right support. Currently, she is working on a three-year research project funded by the Swedish Research Council on whether and why young men may feel threatened by women’s empowerment. Additionally, she has a Cambridge Elements book on the role of gender and sexuality in political authoritarianism. 

Chair 

Nonna Mayer, Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS 

Discussant 

Noémie Piolat, Sciences Po, CEE