Young men are looking for help in all the wrong places |
Like most people with a Netflix subscription, I recently watched the latest doco from Louis Theroux called Inside the Manosphere.
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It explores the growing popularity of people like Andrew Tate: influencers who promote a toxic form of masculinity that's filled with a deep hatred for women, a deep love of all things materialistic, with generous servings of homophobia and anti-Semitism on the side.
The documentary explores what's driving the appeal of these influencers, particularly among Gen Z. It posits everything from a crisis of masculinity and the rise of social media through to misinformation and political polarisation.
It's a great documentary, but it misses one key driver of these problems: an economy and government policies that aren't delivering for young people.
To be fair, not everything these influencers promote is bad, at least not on face value.
They encourage young men to get fit, eat healthy, and avoid addiction to alcohol, cigarettes and pornography.
They encourage them to be self-reliant, to avoid a victim-mentality and to pick themselves up off the ground.
They tell them that they have all the tools they need to succeed in life.
These are great messages. Unfortunately these messages come wrapped-up in toxic and inconsistent packaging.
When they talk about 'success', they talk about money, Lamborghinis, luxury apartments, Rolexes and how fit they look.
When they encourage self-reliance and entrepreneurship, they hawk dodgy crypto schemes and get-rich-quick financial products.
When they encourage health and fitness, they hawk steroids, peptides and fad diets.
When they warn against pornography addiction, they simultaneously promote OnlyFans accounts.
When they warn against a victim-mentality, they simultaneously say that men are victims and that women, feminism, the gay community, the Jewish community, governments - take your pick - are to blame.
The documentary does a great job unpacking why these influencers do what they do. It shows there is no consistency in their views, opinions or ideologies. They will say whatever they need to say to get more clicks and make more money.
The more interesting question is why so many young men find these guys appealing.
Social media, misinformation, political polarisation and the debate around the role of men and masculinity in society are no doubt all part of the story.
But the other part of the story is the economic plight of young people.
To put it bluntly: the economy has been terrible for young people and too many of our policies are rigged against them.
Aussie households have had a rough decade. But it's been much worse for young people on almost every metric.
The last decade saw the slowest growth in real household income in more than half a century. But for young people, their incomes actually went backwards.
Almost all the decline in the 'aggregate labour share' - the share of national income that goes to workers rather than businesses - came from the collapse in real wage growth for younger workers.
And it gets worse. The rate of young men who are not in employment, education or training rose by more than a third during the global financial crisis and never came back down.
COVID-19 saw that rate double again. Even with a super strong labour market we have struggled to get it back down to pre-GFC levels.
The jobs available to young people are also in decline. Young people are disproportionately employed by new businesses, yet the rate of new businesses being created has declined sharply.
These economic challenges are piling on top of, and worsening, social challenges.
About 18 per cent of young people were classified as being lonely back when the HILDA survey was undertaken in 2001. It has spiked to 26 per cent since then.
The number of young people experiencing distress increased from 18 per cent in 2001 to a staggering 42 per cent today.
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Around one in five of 18- to 34-year-olds say they have only one or no close friends, triple what was reported in 2011.
The portion of those aged 18 to 29 who claim to have had no sex for 12 months has more than doubled in a decade - to 23 per cent last year.
Our economy is not delivering for young people, and our policies are making it worse.
If young people feel like the deck is rigged against them, that's because it is.
Housing, tax, welfare, industrial relations, health and education are all areas riddled with policies that favour old people over young people.
Whenever we talk about changing these policies the word 'grandfathering' immediately gets mentioned - meaning the opportunity is locked-in for old people and denied to young people.
The rise of the manosphere is intimately linked to the dearth of economic opportunity being given to young people.
And if you feel bad for the young men being pulled into this toxic environment, spare a thought for young women who are not only copping the exact same economic environment, but also watching their male peers become more toxic towards them.
The young people getting sucked into the manosphere are looking for help in all the wrong places. The more we help them, the less they'll look.
Adam Triggs is a partner at the economics firm Mandala, is a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution and a visiting fellow at the ANU Crawford School.
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