It has nothing to do with being "civilized".
For starters, androgenetic alopecia is genetic and anyone who claims otherwise is a dunning-kruger, pseudoscience slurping retard who probably believes in some variation of "muh primal diet".
Anyway, caucasoids (which is a broader group than "europeans" as it includes middle eastern, north african, turkic etc. people) are more likely to go bald than southeast asians, mestizos, and east asians due to them having less DHT (which is also why these populations have less body hair). Speaking of which, the fact that androgenetic alopecia among young people in South Korea and Japan (which are "civilized" nations by any standard, arguably more civilized than the vast majority of europe) is extremely uncommon is proof enough your "chud" coworker has no idea what he's talking about and is just confidently repeating what he heard someone on the internet say.