Friendship recession, part 4

 I hadn't intended to have so many posts on this issue, but people keep talking about it.  In the New York Times today, Robert Putnam and Richard Reeves write "One in seven young men reports that he has no close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990."  The link goes to a report on the same 2021 survey that I wrote about before.*  In a previous post, I suggested that the apparent decline in number of close friends might reflect a difference in the survey format or the sample, and in this post I'll look at that possibility more closely.  The question about the number of close friends has been asked in two other recent surveys, one by Pew in July 2023 and another by Survey Center on American Life using the IPSOS Knowledge Panel in April 2024 (they also did the 2021 survey).  The percent reporting no close friends:

                   Men          Women

1990          4.4%           1.6% 
2021          16.4%        11.6%
2023            8.3%          7.4%

2024           17.3%       15.7%

The 2021, 2023, and 2024 surveys were conducted using online panels.  I suggested that people in online panels know that saying you had friends would increase the chance that you'd get additional questions, so that some of the "none" answers were just people who were in a hurry to get through.  The 2021 and 2024 surveys show about twice as many people reporting no friends as the 2023 survey, but that's consistent with my hypothesis--Pew and IPSOS may differ in their propensity to ask additional questions (or in how strictly they check for signs that a respondent was rushing through).  

My hypothesis implies that online panels will have more "nones," but doesn't suggest any changes in the relative frequency of other answers.  That is, if you say you have four friends rather than five, you'll still get follow-up questions.**  Here are the mean numbers of close friends for people who say they have at least one***.

                  Men          Women
1990          6.7               5.7
2021          5.0               4.5
2023          4.9               4.6
2024          5.4               5.3

So there does seem to be some decline, and it's larger for men, but the result not a growing gap, but a decline of the gap between men and women.  

These numbers don't fit the story about the social isolation of men today.  Of course, you could say there are offsetting differences--women "really" have more close friends, but also have higher standards for counting someone as a close friend.  That could be true, but you could make a similar argument about changes in the reported number of close friends--that is, people's standards might have risen over the years.  In my last post, I mentioned a question from 1950:  "When you have personal problems, do you like to discuss them with anyone to help clear them up, or not?" and said "Today, the general assumption is that it's a need, not something that you might or might not like to do."  It happens that the 2024 survey asked "If you were facing a personal problem, who is the first person you would turn to for help?" and offered some possibilities (spouse or partner, friend, parents...) , followed by "there is no one I could turn to."  The difference between those questions illustrates the nature of a change that I think has happened--growing emphasis on the ability to discuss "personal problems" as a defining feature of friendship. 

*The numbers in that report don't actually refer to young men, but to men in general.  
**You'll get fewer follow-ups if there are questions about the characteristics of individual friends, but those are unusual. 
***More than 10 is counted as 10.  

[Data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, Survey Center for American Life, and Pew Research Center]