Why are young men and women drifting apart? Value change theory suggests that postmaterialist values flourish when individuals grow up with existential security—often proxied by rising GDP. Yet, this measure fails to capture the lived experiences of younger generations, particularly those of men. While women have seen sustained gains in education, labour market participation, and financial independence, men’s progress has stagnated. As women become less financially dependent on male partners, the breadwinner role—central to masculine identity—
has become harder to attain and less socially relevant. Rising living costs, especially unaffordable housing, and intensified competition in the labour market exacerbate this shift. We argue that these conditions constitute both a perceived and real loss of status for men, contributing to ideological backlash. Using data from the ESS Round 11 across 24 countries, our findings suggest that gendered patterns of declining existential security are central to the ideological divergence between young men and women. We show that hostile sexism is declining steadily
among young women but stalling—and in some cases increasing—among young men. This widening gender gap is explained by structural indicators of economic insecurity, especially the rent-to-wage ratio, and, to a lesser extent, by women’s growing educational advantage. Our findings suggest that declining existential security—when experienced asymmetrically across gender lines—can disrupt the
assumptions of linear value change. Instead of uniform liberalisation, modernisation may be giving rise to gendered polarisation.
