Growing despair and polarization between young men and women can impact the U.S. elections
The “gender gap” in politics is the difference in the percentage of women and the percentage of men voting for a given candidate. In America, a different gender gap of hope and despair is widening between young men and women with untold political consequences.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll?taken before the September 10 presidential election debate had the gender gap between men and women in support of former President Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris at 18 points.[1]
The Washington Monthly publishes a Gender Gap Tracker. Its September 12 edition placed the gender gap at 19.1, up 2.4 from the previous week.
That result contrasts with the results of the ABC News / Ipsos poll conducted following the September 10 debate. ?In a post-debate poll of 3,276 adults produced for ABC News by?Langer Research Associates with fieldwork by?Ipsos,?Harris led Trump 51 to 46% among all registered voters and 52 to 46% among likely voters. She led by nine points among women while running virtually even with him among men, and by a slight nine points among 18- to 29-year-olds, entirely due to her support from women that age.
A separate, earlier poll of younger adults in swing states found a similar 10-point gap in support for Harris among 2,000 women and men ages 18 to 34.[3]
A 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll among registered voters published on September 12 found Harris leads among women voters by 13 points (48% to 35%) and Trump leads men by eight points (47% to 39%). The poll?was conducted online from August 26 through September 4 among a national sample of 20,762 adults, including 18,123 registered voters, with a modeled error estimate of plus or minus 1.0 percentage points.[4]
The gender gap is real and evident especially among young male voters, 18 to 29. Prior to Harris entering the race, the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School found that among 18 to 29-year-olds, President Biden’s lead with women was +33 points in contrast to young men where his lead dropped to six points.[5]?
Harris should be concerned about the widening gap between young women and men in their support for the candidates in the 2024 presidential election.
To understand the differences between young men and women in America, it is helpful to look at mortality statistics, in particular the suicide rates of white males and white females, which show the largest divergence among all ethnic groups. In 2022, the second highest U.S. age-adjusted suicide rate was among was among Whites (15.83 per 100,000), with White Males at 25.37 per 100,000 and White Females at 6.57 per 100,000.[6]? Young white males commit suicide nearly four times as frequently as young white females.
Male opioid deaths in the United States show a similar gender gap. Opioid-involved overdose deaths rose from 49,860 in 2019 to 81,806 in 2022, with males dying from opioid overdoes nearly three times more frequently than females.[7]
The evidence points to a gender gap of hope and despair among young Americans.
Despair has political repercussions. A study based on over 300,000 completed surveys in 20 countries between 2014 and 2023 by the international research agency Glocalities found the growing despair and polarization between young men and women impacts elections.
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And although over the last decade, there has been a surge in feelings of hopelessness and societal discontent among both younger men and women (18-24), according to Glocalities data, young U.S. men were the only population group in the United States or seven EU member states to have become more conservative since 2014.[8]
To win the support of young American men in the 2024 presidential election, candidates would do well to address this despair, rather than ignore or feed it.
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[1] Calder McHugh (September 9, 2024). The gender gap that’s haunting Trump. Politico. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-nightly/2024/09/12/the-gender-gap-thats-haunting-trump-00178983
[2] Langer Research Associates (September 15, 2024). ABC News/Ipsos Poll: After the Harris-Trump Debate. https://www.langerresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/1236a1AftertheHarris-TrumpDebate.pdf
[3] ??Sarah Fortinsky (September 5, 2024.) Harris support among young voters higher than Biden’s: Survey. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4864606-kamala-harris-joe-biden-young-voters/; ?Lauren Camera (September 4, 2024). Poll: Harris Ignites Enthusiasm Among Younger Adults in Critical Swing States. U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-09-04/exclusive-poll-shows-harris-ignites-enthusiasm-among-young-adults-in-critical-swing-states
[4] Grace Paneta (September 12, 2024) Harris holds a slight edge over Trump — and it’s driven by women, poll finds. Minnesota Reformer. https://minnesotareformer.com/2024/09/12/harris-holds-a-slight-edge-over-trump-and-its-driven-by-women-poll-finds/
[5] Elaine Kamarck?and?Jordan Muchnick (May 23, 2024). The growing gender gap among young people. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-growing-gender-gap-among-young-people/
[6] American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (May 2022). Suicide Rates. From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Data & Statistics Fatal Injury Report for 2022, retrieved May 11, 2024. https://afsp.org/suicide-statistics/#:~:text=Suicide%20rates%20by%20age%20range,those%20age%2034%20and%20below.
[7] National Institute of Drug Addiction (2023). U.S. Overdoes Deaths Involving Any Opioid by Sex, 1999-2022. https://nida.nih.gov/sites/default/files/images/fig3-2024.jpg
[8] Glocalities (2024). Growing despair and polarization between young women & men impacts elections. https://glocalities.com/reports/trend-report-polarization
Philosopher, Historian, Political Scientist, and Legal Scholar
2 个月I do have considerable empathy for young people in general and young men in particular for the economic circumstances in which they currently find themselves. However, I do not excuse young men (or anyone else) for voting for a candidate who is a well-known pathological liar, megalomaniac, and would-be autocrat. It's a good thing that women in the United States were given the vote by the Nineteenth Amendment (ratified 1920). Otherwise, we might be living in an actual fascist regime at this time. To obtain clarity on what has happened economically during the last few decades and especially the last few years, see Peter S. Goodman, "How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain" (https://www.amazon.com/How-World-Ran-Out-Everything-ebook/dp/B0CHW8HB1H/ref=sr_1_1?Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.58w3b4LZpzSINmV7hpCkiZhQCWqAitcVZiM6E4E8Shq15H3QBNlWnpO4XszKq-dne2mq1q0sQr4r-iuJ5GU2UmdbFJDRmvC9B0H4hoXT5qCBvYyv_n-rC0o6mbhKxuSwF4iAkZR5FUjR7dPZJ0K14LfQcq6bUrO4aO3vfqGMdsX22rdpsP8Ncr48O9YSfhVTTQJl_PasJmCR4jdm3sqbrGKBW9RgvoNyNkce57Mv8Q4.IyXpk8OeHEHo0jIMaJu4s9mLtpzyYU7AmuzziAVK5oc&dib_tag=se&qid=1726434767&refinements=p_27%3APeter+S.+Goodman&s=books&sr=1-1&unfiltered=1).
Owner - iWasteNot Systems Inc.
2 个月To address the despair I think we need to understand the source of the despair first. For young men without college degrees I suspect it stems from work and economic problems. For others with degrees and good economic prospects I think it may arise from client change concerns. There may also be other groups with specific concerns. Diagnosis first and treatment following. And my view is that it will be difficult to the "old days" with good employment for those young men without college degrees or technical skills at the same time that the effects and costs of climate change weigh heavy on the economy.