What Social Trends Taught Us About the 2023 Economy

This yr, the world realized that some males simply can’t cease enthusiastic about the Roman Empire. Over right here at The New York Occasions, we are able to’t cease enthusiastic about what social traits like that one inform us in regards to the American financial system.

We had no scarcity of viral memes and moments to debate in 2023. People flocked to Paris (and abroad typically). Millennial ladies stocked up on the Stanley thermoses their dads used to make use of, one in every of a spread of female-powered shopper fads. Thanks partly to Barbie, Birkenstocks additionally got here again more durable than a ’90s development. Individuals spoke in Taylor Swift lyrics.

Social developments like these can inform us so much in regards to the financial system we’re dwelling in. To wrap up 2023, we ran via a few of the huge cultural occasions and what they taught us in regards to the labor market, financial development and the outlook for 2024.

‘He’s Simply Ken’ Had Labor Market Tiebacks

“Barbie,” the film that launched a thousand assume items, hit theaters this summer season with a telling promotional catchphrase: “She’s every part. He’s simply Ken.”

This, clearly, was a film in regards to the labor market.

The movie pictured Barbie making an attempt to grapple with the harshness of an actual world that was not dominated by ladies, and Ken looking for his footing after realizing that he lacked a transparent place in Barbie’s fictional world.

That was extra than simply social commentary. As in Barbieland, America has seen an actual divergence in outcomes for younger and middle-aged women and men in recent times — particularly within the labor market. Youthful ladies had been working at traditionally excessive charges earlier than the pandemic, and so they bounced proper again after the 2020 downturn.

Males had been a distinct story. Youthful males’s employment bounced again, however they’re nonetheless working at a lot decrease charges than a couple of many years in the past. Males within the 35- to 44-year-old group specifically have been working much less and fewer through the years, and have not too long ago didn’t recapture their 2019 employment peak.

In 2023 particularly, ladies gained 1.4 jobs for each one which males did (via November).

What’s behind the long-run decline in male work? Economists and sociologists level to various causes: A shift away from marriage and the decline in childbearing have eroded one conventional social rationale for work. Males could also be having one thing of an on-the-job id disaster in a contemporary financial system the place many new jobs tilt towards “pink collar” service industries like little one care and nursing.

“Ken is looking for his place on the earth,” stated Betsey Stevenson, an economist on the College of Michigan, explaining that it ties again to a world of various alternatives which have left some males looking for a brand new footing. “We moved from an financial mannequin the place the median job is making stuff to an financial system the place the median job is caring for anyone.”

Males are additionally much less educated than as we speak’s younger ladies, which can go away some with much less marketable résumés. (Within the film, Ken tries to get a job on the shoreline however is instructed he lacks the talents. He laments: “I can’t even seaside right here!”)

Taylor Swift and Beyoncé Confirmed America’s Willingness to Spend

It wasn’t simply the labor market that ladies dominated this yr: It was a yr of female-centric consumerism. Take, as an example, the 2 musical occasions of the summer season. Each Beyoncé and Taylor Swift had enormous live performance excursions that spurred a number of financial exercise. In addition they launched movies of their reveals, bringing the enjoyable (and the cash) to the field workplace.

The live performance spree itself was an instance of a broader financial development. Customers continued to spend strongly in 2023, particularly on companies like reside music and worldwide journey. That was one thing of a shock as a result of forecasters had thought that much-higher rates of interest from the Federal Reserve had been prone to tip the financial system into recession this yr.

‘Woman Dinners’ Ranked Amongst Cheapish Meals Tendencies

One other place the place women led the best way in 2023? Culinary innovation. Younger ladies posted viral TikToks about what might need, relying on one’s demographic patois, been termed a charcuterie board (millennial), a Ploughman’s (Brit) or a lunchable (Oscar Mayer). However to Technology Z, it was Woman Dinner.

This, very like the Roman Empire and males meme, was an occasion of a gender’s being utilized to a fairly broad and fundamental idea. Woman dinners got here in lots of sizes and styles, however they had been basically simply meals constructed from comparatively inexpensive elements: Assume leftover cheese chunks, boxed macaroni or hen nuggets.

What they did clearly echo was a broader economywide development towards larger meals thriftiness. Large retailers together with Walmart and McDonald’s reported seeing a brand new group of customers as even comfortably middle-class customers tried to economize on groceries after years of fast meals inflation. Total worth will increase slowed markedly in 2023, however a number of years of fast inflation have added up, leaving many costs notably increased for a lot of fundamental requirements.

Ozempic Frightened Large Meals

Client grocery traits noticed one other huge and sudden change this yr. Some huge meals firms are apprehensive that individuals are on the cusp of shopping for much less meals due to merchandise like Ozempic and Wegovy, which rose to prominence this yr as a part of a brand new and efficient set of weight-loss medicine. Whereas that was a hopeful second for a lot of who’ve struggled with weight problems and its well being results, it was one which brought on consternation and adaptation at some retailers and fast-food chains. Walmart has stated it already sees an influence on demand.

ChatGPT Raised Eyebrows in Economics

Well being care wasn’t the one sphere to see a giant breakthrough in 2023. OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot rocketed to prominence this yr for producing humanlike writing, and its rivals put up their very own choices (together with one which fell in love with a Occasions columnist).

Such applied sciences might have main financial implications, reshaping how we work, changing some jobs and probably boosting productiveness. For now, workplace staff have used it to write down emails. College students have used it to write down papers. Your pleasant economics correspondent tried to make use of it to write down this story part, however synthetic intelligence and Occasions editors have a distinct understanding of the time period “transient.”

The freely out there model of ChatGPT is working from 2022 knowledge, so it additionally declined to touch upon one other key growth from this yr.

“If ‘rizz’ refers to one thing particular, please present extra context or make clear,” the chatbot responded when requested if it possessed Oxford’s phrase of the yr, a Gen Z shorthand for “charisma.”

With somewhat extra prodding, it admitted, “I don’t have private qualities.”