AIBM — Male loneliness and isolation: what the data shows

What the study found

The American Institute for Boys and Men reviewed a range of US datasets — including the American Time Use Survey, Census Household Pulse data, Gallup, Pew and the 2021 American Perspectives Survey — and concluded that men and women report broadly similar overall levels of loneliness, even as some specific male deficits stand out. It reported that the share of men saying they have no close friends rose from 3% in 1990 to 15% in 2021 (women: 2% to 10%), that 25% of US men aged 15-34 reported loneliness versus 18% of women in Gallup data, and that 8th- and 10th-grade boys reported frequent loneliness far less often than girls in those grades (25% vs 44%), while men more often said they were not meaningfully part of any group or community. ^[1]

the loneliness epidemic is not a blanket crisis for men in particular

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Why it matters here

The manosphere often frames a "male loneliness epidemic" as a defining crisis for young men. This review complicates that framing: it finds overall loneliness levels are broadly similar across the sexes, so loneliness is not a blanket crisis unique to men, while still identifying real male-specific gaps in close friendship and community belonging. That mixed picture — neither dismissing men's isolation nor treating it as uniquely male — bears directly on is there a male loneliness epidemic?, which weighs how far the data support the "epidemic" claim.