Survey Shows Increasing Numbers of High School Boys are Conservative, Girls Becoming More Liberal

CV NEWS FEED // What’s in America’s political future? One way to find out is to look at American youth and their political ideas—and according to a 2022 survey, 12th-grade boys are beginning to lean more conservative, while girls are becoming more liberal.

Monitoring the Future, a study group administered by the University of Michigan to follow the habits of high school students, reported in 2022 that the boys’ tendency to identify as conservative represented a sudden shift in their views. 

According to The Hill, in the early 2000s both boys and girls leaned liberal, with only around 17-20% identifying as conservative. In 2014, however, conservative 12th-grade boys jumped up to 22%, and then up to 26% in 2020. In contrast, in 2020, only 13% of boys identified as liberal, a number which has stayed constant for the past three years.

The Hill reported that among 12th-grade girls, there is a growing trend to identify as liberal. In 2012, only 19% of 12th-grade girls considered themselves liberal—in 2022, 30% of the girls self-identified as liberal, compared to only 12% of who called themselves conservative.

These trends also reflect the political affiliations of young adults. According to a recent study by the American Survey Center, more women than men support leftist issues like women in the military, gay and lesbian parenting, and stay-at-home dads. The survey shows that 44% of young women (ages 18-29) identified as liberal in 2021, while only 25% of men did the same. A decade before, however, about the same number of men and women considered themselves liberal.  

Explanations for these political trends among men and women vary. As a result of Trump’s presidency and a conservative Supreme Court that overturned a previous “right” to abortion, more women became liberal in an effort to “preserve their rights” and protest against misogyny.  

For high school boys and young men, the political field abounds with conservative role models and champions, from Trump and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis to psychologist Jordan Peterson and Daily Wire commentators Matt Walsh and Ben Shapiro. 

Men tend to turn conservative because “Democrats have a masculinity problem,” as Politico points out. Politico, a magazine that earns a “leans left” rating from AllSides Media, says that “Republicans seem all too happy to capitalize on the gun-toting, fist-pumping tropes of stereotypical manhood.” Stereotypical or not, conservative ideas tend to focus on individualism, self-sufficiency, and self determination, according to Politico, and that tends to be more appealing to a number of men. 

Jean Twenge, an author and psychology professor at San Diego State University, commented on the data provided by Monitoring the Future, the American Survey Center, and other surveys in her recent book about generational differences and the future.

“Among liberals, the future is female,” she wrote, according to The Hill. “And among conservatives, the future is male.”

Twenge has not yet responded to a request for further comment.