There has recently been extensive media coverage suggesting that young men and women have become increasingly polarized, drifting apart in their worldviews, values, attitudes, and political ideologies (Burn-Murdoch, 2024; Chung, 2025). However, relatively little empirical research has examined whether this purported division among youth has in fact changed over time. Media coverage often lack attention to historical trends, and even data-driven journalistic efforts may prioritize audience engagement over careful empirical description of the phenomenon.

At the same time, a related concept has gained prominence in both media and academic discourse: the so-called “gender-equality paradox” (Stoet & Geary, 2018). This framework posits that gender differences are larger in more egalitarian societies, for example in domains such as science attitudes measured in PISA and in several other individual characteristics. If gender equality has indeed increased over time, this paradox would also imply within-country growth in differences between young men and women.

This study tests whether this purportedly paradoxical pattern is evident in the personal values of European youth, examined from 2002 to 2020 using ten rounds of European Social Survey data across 33 European countries (total N = 63,402). 

Following recent developments in statistical methodologies for examining gender differences and their correlates, this study employed a multivariate, value-based gender-typicality measure to assess the overall distance between young men and women aged 18 to 29 (Ilmarinen et al., 2023). To examine associations with time and country-level gender equality, a deconstructed analytical approach was used, addressing methodological limitations in many studies that report evidence for a “gender-equality paradox” across educational, economic, personality, and value domains (Ilmarinen & Lönnqvist, 2024). Rather than relying on difference scores, which can introduce statistical artifacts in regression and correlation analyses, the deconstructed approach separately examines changes in the average profiles of young men and young women over time and as a function of gender equality. This strategy allowed for clearer inference about whether observed patterns reflect shifts in one or both groups. Multilevel models with individuals nested within countries were employed to account for the hierarchical structure of the data. Personal values were measured using the Human Values Scale. Country-level gender equality was measure using the Gender Equality Index (a reversed form of the Gender Inequality Index) and the Global Gender Gap Index. Research hypotheses and analysis plans were preregistered (https://osf.io/7cags/?view_only=f3e97a78271e46bfafb9e20ac8d35bb1). Data, code, and materials are available at https://osf.io/e3947/overview?view_only=6bc07ea0d0034f0f93c826fee1f1daa3.

There was no evidence of general polarization or increasing division in value-based gender gaps across the ten rounds of European Social Survey data collected between 2002 and 2020. Model estimates indicate that the average multivariate gender difference among European youth in 2002 (ESS Round 1) was D = 0.42, 95% CI [0.37, 0.48], p < .001, whereas by 2020 (ESS Round 10) it had declined to D = 0.32, 95% CI [0.26, 0.38], p < .001. These results suggest that young men and women in Europe are not growing apart in their values over time; if anything, they have become more similar and less male-typical on average. Country-specific time trends for young women and men further illustrate the absence of increasing gender division in 21st-century Europe. None of the 33 countries exhibited diverging trends. Instead, value-based male-typicality declined on average and showed decreases in 19 countries, while increases were observed in only five. Interestingly, several Eastern European countries displayed both increases in value-based male-typicality and evidence of convergence, with young men and women becoming more similar to each other over time. These findings suggest that interpretations of a gender-equality paradox in values and other individual differences reflect “inflated crud” rather than a coherent substantive pattern. Following Orben and Lakens (2020), this “crud” refers to small true-positive correlations arising from the complexity of social and behavioral data. The apparent paradox may therefore largely result from analytical choices rather than a theoretically meaningful phenomenon. Addressing this requires examining associations separately for men and women, using effect size metrics that do not rely on mean-level correlations (e.g., Cohen’s q), and preregistering theoretically meaningful minimum effect sizes.

Burn-Murdoch, J. (2024, January 26). A new global gender divide is emerging. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/29fd9b5c-2f35-41bf-9d4c-994db4e12998 Chung, H. (2025, March 5). Gen Z men and women most divided on gender equality, global study shows. King’s College London. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/gen-z-men-and-women-most-divided-on-gender-equality-global-study-shows Ilmarinen, V. J., & Lönnqvist, J. E. (2024). Deconstructing the gender-equality paradox. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 127(1), 217–237. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000508 Ilmarinen, V. J., Vainikainen, M. P., & Lönnqvist, J. E. (2023). Is there a g-factor of genderedness? Using a continuous measure of genderedness to assess sex differences in personality, values, cognitive ability, school grades, and educational track. European Journal of Personality, 37(3), 313–337. https://doi.org/10.1177/08902070221088155 Orben, A., & Lakens, D. (2020). Crud (re)defined. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/2515245920917961 Stoet, G., & Geary, D. C. (2018). The gender-equality paradox in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. Psychological Science, 29(4), 581–593. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617741719