by This year, the world learned that some men just can’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire. Here at The New York Times we can’t stop thinking about what social trends like this tell us about the American economy.
We had no shortage of viral memes and moments to discuss in 2023. Americans flocked to Paris (and abroad in general). Millennial women stocked up on stanley thermoses their parents used to wear, one of a series of female-driven consumer fads. Thanks in part to Barbie, Birkenstocks are back too harder than a 90s trend. People were talking about Taylor Swift lyrics.
Social developments like these can tell us a lot about the economy we live in. To conclude 2023, we look back at some of the big cultural events and what they taught us about the job market, economic growth and the outlook for 2024.
‘He’s Just Ken’ had links to the labor market
“Barbie,” the movie that launched thousands of think pieces, hit theaters this summer with a telling promotional tagline: “She’s everything. “He’s just Ken.”
This, clearly, was a movie about the job market.
The film showed Barbie trying to deal with the harshness of a real world that was not dominated by women, and Ken trying to find his footing after realizing he lacked a clear place in Barbie’s fictional world.
That was more than just social commentary. Much like Barbieland, the United States has seen a real divergence in outcomes for young and middle-aged men and women in recent years, specifically in the labor market. Younger women were working at historically high rates before the pandemic and rebounded immediately after the 2020 recession.
The men were a different story. Employment of younger men has recovered, but they continue to work at much lower rates than a few decades ago. Men in the 35-44 age group in particular have been working less and less over the years and have recently failed to regain their 2019 employment peak.
In 2023 specifically, women gained 1.4 jobs for each one men he did (until November).
What’s behind the long-term decline in male employment? Economists and sociologists point out several causes: walk away from marriage and declining motherhood have eroded a traditional social justification for work. Men may be experiencing something of an identity crisis at work in a modern economy where many new jobs are leaning toward “pink collar” service industries such as child care and nursing.
“Ken is trying to find his place in the world,” said Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of Michigan, explaining that this relates to a world of different opportunities that have left some men looking for a new position. “We went from an economic model in which the average job is making things to an economy in which the average job is taking care of someone.”
Men are too less educated than today’s young women, which can leave some with less marketable resumes. (In the film, Ken tries to get a job on the coast, but is told lack the skills. He laments: “I can’t even go to the beach here!”
Taylor Swift and Beyoncé showed America’s willingness to spend
It wasn’t just the job market that women dominated this year: it was a year of female-centric consumerism. Take, for example, the two summer music events. Both Beyoncé and Taylor Swift went on huge concert tours that stimulated a lot of economic activity. They also released movies of their shows, bringing the fun (and money) to the box office.
The concert wave itself was an example of a broader economic trend. Consumers continued to spend heavily in 2023, especially in services such as live music and international travel. This was a surprise because forecasters had thought that much higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve would likely push the economy into a recession this year.
‘Girl dinners’ are among the cheap food trends
Another place where women led the way in 2023? Culinary innovation. Young women published viral TikToks about what, depending on one’s demographic dialect, might have been called a (millennial) deli joint, a of the farmer (British) or a lunchable (Oscar Mayer). But for Generation Z, it was Girl Dinner.
This, like the Roman Empire and the men’s meme, was an example of the application of gender to a fairly broad and basic concept. Girls’ dinners came in many shapes and sizes, but they were basically meals made with relatively affordable ingredients: think leftover pieces of cheese, boxed macaroni, or chicken nuggets.
What they did clearly echo was a broader economy-wide trend toward greater food frugality. Big box retailers, including Walmart and McDonald’s, reported seeing a new group of shoppers as even comfortable middle-class consumers tried to save money on food after years of rapid food inflation. Overall price increases slowed noticeably in 2023, but have come on top of several years of rapid inflation, leaving prices noticeably higher for many basic needs.
Ozempic concerned about great food
Grocery consumption trends experienced another major and unexpected change this year. Some big food companies are worried that people are about to buy less food because of products like Ozempic and Wegovy, which rose to prominence this year as part of an effective new suite of weight-loss drugs. While that was a hopeful moment for many who have struggled with obesity and its health effects, it caused consternation and adjustment for some retailers and fast food chains. Walmart has said it you already see an impact On demand.
ChatGPT attracted attention in economics
Healthcare wasn’t the only area to see a breakthrough in 2023. OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot rose to fame this year for generating human-like writing, and its competitors came up with their own offerings (including one that fell for from a Times columnist).
These technologies could have important economic implications, reorganization how we work, replacing some jobs and potentially increase productivity. For now, office workers have used it to write emails. Students have used it to write articles. His friendly economics correspondent tried to use it to write this section of the story, but AI and Times editors have a different understanding of the term “brief.”
The freely available version of ChatGPT runs on data from 2022, so he also declined to comment on another key development this year.
“If ‘rizz’ refers to something specific, please provide more context or clarify,” the chatbot responded when asked if it owned Oxford’s word of the year, a Gen Z shorthand for “charisma.”
With a little more insistence, he admitted: “I have no personal qualities.”
