Populist attitudes have become a central focus in research on citizens’ political orientations, yet their individual-level economic determinants remain contested. While national economic evaluations often better predict populist attitudes than personal experiences of vulnerability, recent shifts in labour markets suggest that individual trajectories may matter more than previously thought. Young men are increasingly portrayed as the losers of contemporary economies, facing higher unemployment, lower incomes, and more precarious careers than young women. However, this gendered dimension of economic insecurity has rarely been considered in studies of populism or examined longitudinally. This paper addresses these gaps by analysing how gendered labour-market experiences, particularly unemployment, influence populist attitudes among young people. Using eleven waves (2014–2024) of panel data from Spain, a context marked by persistent youth unemployment and widespread populist attitudes, the study employs fixed-effects models to capture within-individual changes over time. The findings show that unemployment increases populist attitudes and that the effect is led by young men, revealing the gendered pathways linking labour-market precarity to populist attitudes.