Do You Have Friends of the Opposite Gender? NewsWire

NewsWire: 5/21/22

• According to a new report, adult friend groups are often segregated by gender. A majority of both men and women say "they have more same-gender friendships," but as they grow older, while men gain more female friends, women lose male friends.  (Survey Center on American Life)
  
• NH: A recent poll by the Survey Center on American Life asked adults about the gender of their friends. While the results show that Americans gravitate towards people of the same gender, the findings vary by sex and age. So let's explore the results.
• Women are more likely to report having friendships of the same gender. While 52% of women say that most of their close friends are women, only 40% of men say that most of their close friends are men. Women are also significantly more likely to say they have no close friends of the other gender (13% vs. 6%). 
• That's not all. Men gain more female friends as they age. For example, 51% of 18- to 29-year-old men say that their close friends are mostly men, compared to only 32% of men 65+. Fully 54% of senior men report that their close friends are "about equal numbers of men and women."

• The pattern is reversed for women: They are more likely to have close male friends when they are younger than when they are older. For example, only 45% of young women say their closest friends are women, compared to 57% of senior women. 

Did You Know?

• Let’s Touch Base About Your Feelings. Thanks to the tight labor market, employers have stepped up their efforts to retain workers. For some, this has meant offering extra compliments or gift cards. (See “Employers Are Trying to Boost Morale.”) And for others, according to The Wall Street Journal, it has meant trying a kinder, gentler approach to management. Several major companies, including Cisco Systems, Eventbrite, and Unilever, are integrating empathy into their leadership training programs. Eventbrite’s leadership development program, which launched in 2020, includes lessons on active listening and showing vulnerability. In one of its courses, Cisco Systems asks teams to spend eight hours learning about each other’s communication styles. While it might seem awkward to have bosses suddenly asking about their employees’ feelings, surveys suggest more effort in this area is welcomed. In a February 2022 Gallup poll of 15,000 U.S. workers, just 24% of respondents strongly agreed that their employer "cares about my overall well-being."