“Don't Work for Soyciety:” Involuntary Celibacy and Unemployment
AnnaRose Beckett-Herbert, Eran Shor
First published: 05 February 2025
https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13248
ABSTRACT
Surveys of involuntary celibates (“incels”) suggest that they tend to be not in education, employment or training (NEET) at disproportionately high rates. However, it remains unclear whether and how being NEET is connected to incels' ideology and life circumstances. To investigate this, we conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of over a thousand comments posted on the main incel forum, incels.is. We found that many users promoted unemployment and social disengagement as a form of retaliation against a society they feel has harmed them. These users often encouraged other incels to embrace a life of isolation and used employment status as an assessment of commitment to the incel identity. Users also reported experiences of discrimination, bullying, and feeling incompetent at workplaces and educational institutions. We conclude that, for incels, being unemployed can be both an ideological stance and a consequence of their experienced or perceived marginalization.1 Introduction
Involuntary celibates, better known as “incels,” are the subject of increasing media and scholarly attention. The term incel represents a male-dominant community, whose members are defined not only by their inability to find a romantic or sexual partner but also by extreme and sometimes violent misogyny. The limited demographic data on incels who are active in online communities suggest that they number in the tens of thousands and are primarily young men under the age of 30 living in Europe and in North America (Beauchamp 2019; Anti-Defamation League 2020).Incels are considered part of the “manosphere,” an umbrella term that includes a number of interconnected misogynistic communities (Institute for Strategic Dialogue 2022). The manosphere also includes groups such as Pick-Up Artists, Men's Rights Activists, and Men Going Their Own Way. These groups espouse different ideologies and grievances but are united behind anti-feminist, dehumanizing ideas about women, and the belief in male supremacy. For incels, women—as well as the larger society that enables them—are to blame for their sexlessness. They argue that prior to the feminist movement of the 1960s, all men were easily able to find sexual partners. Nowadays, however, women are said to have total control over the sexual marketplace, which allows them to elevate their social status. As a result, a small number of ultra-masculine men—“Chads”—end up with all potential partners, leaving a large number of lesser-status men alone. Being deprived of the sexual experiences they feel they deserve leads many self-identified incels to anger, nihilistic depression, and in some cases, violence (Jaki et al. 2019; Tolentino 2018).
Most of the previous scholarly work on incels has focused on their misogynistic rhetoric and propensity to commit violent acts (e.g., O'Donnell and Shor 2022; Hoffman, Jacob, and Shapiro 2020; Speckhard et al. 2021). Well-known incidents of incel violence include the attack of Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 more in Isla Vista, California, and of Alek Minassian, whose van attack in Toronto was responsible for another 11 deaths. Since then, scholars, governments, and activist groups have increasingly referred to incels as a potential terrorist group (Sganga 2022; O'Donnell and Shor 2022; Hoffman, Jacob, and Shapiro 2020).
Despite this growing scholarly interest in the incel community, some aspects of the incel subculture, particularly those less directly related to misogyny and violence, remain understudied. One such aspect is the relationship between incels and higher education/employment. Existing research indicates that many North American young men today are struggling in the labor market (Yarrow 2018), and that women are rapidly outpacing men in work and education (Reeves 2024). However, incels appear to be struggling with employment and higher education to an even greater extent. Popular incel forums contain discussions of being unemployed on nearly every page.
Empirical research has recently begun to uncover new evidence regarding the employment status of the incel community. One survey of 670 incels, conducted by the Canadian-based Organization for the Prevention of Violence, found that nearly one in four participants reported that they were NEET—not in education, employment, or training (Jones, Hastings, and Stolte 2020). More recently, Costello et al. (2022) found that incels were significantly more likely to be NEET than their non-incel peers, and relatedly, more likely to still be living with their parents. Similarly, in a study of 561 incels, Whittaker, Thomas, and Costello (2024) found that 18% reported being NEET. Despite evidence establishing the correlation between being an incel and being NEET, the precise nature of this connection and its possible sources remain underexplored in the academic literature.
Studying this relationship may provide additional insights into the life circumstances and motivations of incels. It may also be important for designing potential interventions and programs for assistance to community members who are, or feel that they are, marginalized. In this article, we therefore explore incels' discourse around employment and education, seeking to better understand how they perceive the status of being NEET.
