Voluntary underemployment fuels radicalism

Some educated, upper‑middle‑class young people choose low‑paid, prestige roles (freelance writing, adjuncting) over stable management work, which creates self‑inflicted downward mobility. The resulting status loss and resentment then get channeled into high‑salience activism and radical politics. — It reframes parts of contemporary radicalization as a preference‑driven status shortfall, not purely a structural economic squeeze, changing how we explain and address elite‑led movements.