The Gender Gap Is Really a Diploma Divide (with Josh Zingher)

Young men are drifting right and young women are drifting left, but the more revealing divide may be who is sitting in the college classroom and who isn't. Host Aaron Ross Powell talks with Josh Zingher, associate professor of political science at Old Dominion University, about his article "Educational Polarization and the Politics of Young Men." They discuss why the Gen Z gender gap increasingly functions as a proxy for the diploma divide, how the pool of competition for elite positions doubled once women gained real agency over their own choices, and why Zingher reads the reactionary internet as a symptom rather than a cause.

Further Reading

• Educational Polarization and the Politics of Young Men — Liberalism.org

• The Deepening Gender Divide in Credentials, 2000–2020 — Buchmann, Dwyer, and Yao, RSF Journal

• Political Choice in a Polarized America — Joshua N. Zingher, Oxford University Press

More from Liberalism.org

• Tribes, Coalitions, Parties — Janet Bufton

• Can Democracy Survive if We Stand on Different Foundations? — Scott Warren and Morgan Ramsey-Elliot