{"id":1233,"date":"2024-02-18T20:15:47","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T20:15:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allendowney.com\/blog\/?p=1233"},"modified":"2024-02-19T15:04:07","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T15:04:07","slug":"the-gender-gap-in-political-beliefs-is-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allendowney.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/18\/the-gender-gap-in-political-beliefs-is-small\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gender Gap in Political Beliefs Is Small"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In previous articles (here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>) I’ve looked at evidence of a gender gap in political alignment (liberal or conservative), party affiliation (Democrat or Republican), and policy preferences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using data from the GSS, I found that women are more likely to say they are liberal, and more likely to say they are Democrats, by 5-10 percentage points. But in their responses to 15 policy questions that most distinguish conservatives and liberals, men and women give similar answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In other words, the political gap is mostly in what people say about themselves, not in what they believe about specific policy questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now let’s see if we get similar results with ANES data. As with the GSS, I looked for questions where liberals and conservatives give different answers. From those, I selected questions about specific policies, plus four questions related to moral foundations, with preference for questions asked over a long period of time. Here are the 16 topics that met these criteria:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For each question, I identified one or more responses that were more likely to be given by conservatives, which is what I’m calling “conservative responses”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not every respondent was asked every question, so I used a Bayesian method based on item response theory to fill missing values. You can get the details of the method here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in the GSS data, the average number of conservative responses has gone down over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Men give more conservative responses than women, on average, but the differences is only half a question, and the gap is not getting bigger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among people younger than 30, the gap is closer to 1 question, on average. And it is not growing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In summary:<\/p>\n\n\n\n