In the decades since women began entering the corporate workforce at higher rates, our society’s gender dynamics have begun to shift dramatically. Women’s performance in higher education soared and they have become an invaluable labor force contingent. But in recent years, waves of far-right beliefs systems have emerged from the margins and captured large segments of mainstream thought. In the United States and around the world, media geared toward both men and women are calling for a return to “traditional “ gender roles; for women, the appeal is that “having it all” is a myth and being cared for by a man is framed as a better kind of freedom than trying to balance work and home life. For men, the argument is that they have lost value in society and that their lives are worse overall due to increasing gender parity in the labor market.

So, what factors might contribute to these shifts in attitude? HBS Professor Paula Rettl brings us a new examination of the social and political effects of what she calls the “feminization of labor markets.”

Two key findings came out of her analysis:

• · The effects of changing labor markets show up in people’s wallets, which then influence gendered attitudes
  • Reduced income and employment may breed resentment in men who are surrounded by women’s financial advancement and career success. Particularly, when women dominate a particular sector or industry, this labor market may become “feminized,” leading to lesser prospects for men in that field.
• Men may develop increasingly conservative beliefs around gender roles as a reaction to this instability in the labor market and to their perceived loss of power in their relationships with women.
• The corollary of this effect demonstrates that the overall value of and compensation in “feminized” fields may also decline due to both an increase in the labor supply as well as discriminatory management practices, as the field becomes known as “women’s work.”
• Men tend to view power, freedom, and autonomy in zero-sum terms; men believe they themselves lose whatever women gain in terms of financial and social liberation.

Do these changes actually lead to conservative political movements? The answer is a bit more complicated:

• · These changing gender attitudes remain in private spheres, such as relationships, unless a political party activates them through propaganda campaigns.
  • This could be because gender roles have not directly been weaponized by the far right in explicit terms; rather, in the U.S., this activation has been targeted toward specific women’s rights issues such as access to reproductive health care.

Ultimately, this phenomenon is one of many potential factors contributing to widening social and cultural gaps between men and others, including straight women and queer communities.