The Global Gen-Z Gender Divide And Brand Responsibility
The share of women in the U.S. workforce increased from 20% in 1920 to nearly 50% in 1970. Women's participation in the labor market boosted productivity, economic growth and consumer spending. Women now control or influence 85% of consumer spending. In general, women's rights have improved, but we now face a new social challenge: the growing gender divide between young men and women. The splinter is causing political polarization, audience fragmentation and brand atomization.
We study generations to understand how shared formative events—political, economic, technological, legal and environmental—shape our values and how we see things. Historically, people born within the same generation tend to have more unified views on social issues, but Gen-Z seems to be the exception. Young men and young women are drifting further apart. Gen-Z is two generations rolled into one. But why are we seeing a growing gender divide? What can brands do about it?
The Ideological Divide
The gender divide is most noticeable in voting patterns. Young men are becoming more conservative and young women are becoming more progressive. In the U.S., Donald Trump won 56% of the votes from young men compared to 39% from young women. In Germany, the far-right AfD party secured 25% of young men's votes compared to 17% of young women. In South Korea, young women propelled the liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung to victory.
There is one consistent trend: Gen Z is rejecting establishment political parties because they have failed them. However, the rejection manifests differently amongst young men and women. Gen-Z men and women have the widest political gender gap compared to older generations. It would be easy to dismiss politics as unrelated to marketing, but ideology is the invisible force that shapes our values and actions, including our choice of brands and response to advertising.
The Attainment Gap
It would be remiss to discuss the Gen-Z gender divide without acknowledging the progress women have made in various fields despite systemic barriers. Women continue to outpace men in higher education. In the U.K. and several U.S. cities, young women are out-earning young men. Young women are less likely to feel financially and socially dependent on men than previous generations.
In contrast, young men feel lost and confused about their place in modern society. The decline of the manufacturing industry, coupled with women's progress in education and work, has warped men's role as producers and providers. The traditional markers of manhood, like being the breadwinner and having a romantic partner, are out of reach for many young men. Much has been made of the rise of incel culture (involuntarily celibate) but there's a much broader and moderate feeling of alienation amongst young boys. This sentiment is compounded by men's struggle to maintain relationships and emotional connections. For some young men, social pressures, unrealistic expectations and lack of emotional support create the illusion of a zero-sum game, where opportunities for young women and other groups come at the expense of their future.
Digital Segregation
The gender divide isn't only economic and political, but social. Young men and women no longer occupy the same spaces or experience the same culture. The change is mainly due to young people spending more time online and less time in the physical world. In 2000, less than 5% of couples met online. In 2024, more than 60% of couples met their partner online. In developed countries, there are fewer third spaces where young men and women can interact. Young men and women are spending less time in each other's company. Online, social media algorithms serve men and women different content, generating two different versions of reality. Exacerbating the divergence in personal taste, cultural references and shared language between Gen-Z men and women.
Media consumption vastly differs between Gen-Z men and women. For example, 80% of The Joe Rogan Experience listeners are men. Conversely, 70% of Call Her Daddy listers are women. On platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit, men outnumber women two to one. At the same time, when exploring the global gender divide, it's important to remember that a growing number of young people are rejecting gender norms. Nearly 7% of Gen-Z identify as non-binary and 30% as LGBTQ+.
Brand Responsibility
Brands are already operating in a highly charged political environment. Marketing leaders are walking a tightrope between retaining existing consumers and attracting new consumers. Suddenly, brands need to navigate ideological differences within generations. Bridging the gap between young men and women is the only way to maximize your brand reach. Not taking action means missing out on half the total addressable market.
Global brands have the power and responsibility to showcase more positive role models for young men. They can and should bring young men and women together to form shared, real-world experiences again. Doing so requires divestment from media platforms that segregate young men and women: feeding them two different versions of reality. How can we create a shared future when we're experiencing different realities?
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Moore's historic mass pardons were intended to right the wrong of a policy that criminalized the possession and use of marijuana and disproportionately impacted communities of color, because no one should continue to suffer the ill effects of a conviction for conduct that is no longer a crime in the State of Maryland,' Elliott said in a separate statement. On Juneteenth of this year, Moore's office announced an additional 6,938 pardons that were mistakenly omitted from the original pardons. But a Maryland Judiciary spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether those simple cannabis possession charges should have been expunged under the 2023 law or if they'll be expunged now. The governor's office said they will be hidden from the court's public online database under this year's new law. Sen. 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Maryland legalized medical cannabis in 2014 and Maryland voters approved the legalization of recreational use in a 2022 ballot referendum, paving the way for lawmakers to pass the Maryland Cannabis Reform Act in 2023 — which Moore signed into law. Along the way, lawmakers prioritized the purging of court records for cannabis-related criminal charges through expungement, meaning someone with such a conviction could submit a petition to the courts requesting the permanent obliteration of all related records. An expungement is the most effective tool for clearing someone's criminal record, guaranteeing it will be purged from the three places documentation of it exists: the courthouse, the Maryland Judiciary case search database and the state's central repository, which is what gets tapped during criminal background checks. But the expungement process is also burdensome and expensive for those seeking relief, often requiring the help of a lawyer. 'These systems are complicated, they're cumbersome, there's paperwork,' said Heather Warnken, executive director of the Center for Criminal Justice Reform at the University of Baltimore School of Law. 'People who have been held back and marginalized by their convictions are facing even greater barriers to be able to engage with these systems.' Advocates have championed laws that mandate automatic expungement of certain charges. It's the only way to truly give people a clean slate and second chance, said Del. David Moon (D-Montgomery), one such advocate. Auto-expungement was a key component of the Maryland Cannabis Reform Act of 2023, which, in part, ordered the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to purge misdemeanor cannabis charges from the central repository. But officials from the Maryland judiciary have told lawmakers that auto-expungement is a financial and resource burden, prompting the General Assembly to instead use a method called 'shielding' in reform laws. Shielding hides criminal records from the public-facing Maryland Judiciary Case Search database — a form of relief that is simpler to achieve. But it does not include the destruction of records at the courthouse or from the central repository. Waldstreicher expressed frustration with the Maryland Judiciary for its reticence to commit to auto-expungement policies. 'The judiciary continues to plead poverty when it comes to their ability to expunge records,' Waldstreicher said. The governor's office said in a statement that administration officials chose to shield the charges the governor pardoned rather than expunging them because shielding 'provides many of the same benefits of an expungement, and does so without requiring that the individual take any action.' The governor's office added that auto-shielding was done 'using existing state resources' and 'without flooding courthouses with expungement petitions.' To completely purge their charges, those who were pardoned will still need to apply for expungement. Of the 100,000 people Moore pardoned, just 700 have taken that extra step, the judiciary said. It's not clear if those expungement applications were for the cannabis possession or paraphernalia charges. But the gap highlights the legal and administrative hurdles faced by people hoping for a clean slate in a state that disproportionately arrests and imprisons Black people Officials in Moore's office and criminal justice reform advocates said they've known since the June 2024 pardons that clemency was just the first step in a multipart plan to bring relief to those charged with acts that are no longer crimes in Maryland. Since then, the administration has worked to bring additional relief. The Maryland Expungement Reform Act expands expungement eligibility to three additional misdemeanor criminal charges: driving without a license, cashing a bad check and possession of a stolen credit card. Additional charges that were written into the original bill but later killed by lawmakers included resisting arrest, making a false statement to an officer and counterfeiting drug prescriptions, the latter of which would have given expungement eligibility to those who became addicted to opioids often originally prescribed by doctors. Most important to advocates, the new law overturns a 2022 Appellate Court of Maryland ruling that barred expungement for anyone who had violated their probation, even if the underlying charge was eligible under state law. The appeals decision originated with the case of a man, called Abhishek I. in court documents, who had pleaded guilty to low-level theft and was sentenced to probation. 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