Cohort Change in Political Gender Gaps in Europe and Canada: The Role of Modernization

Abstract

This article finds firmer evidence than has previously been presented that men are more left-wing than women in older birth cohorts, while women are more left-wing than men in younger cohorts. Analysis of the European Values Study/World Values Survey provides the first systematic test of how processes of modernization and social change have led to this phenomenon. In older cohorts, women are more right-wing primarily because of their greater religiosity and the high salience of religiosity for left-right self-placement and vote choice in older cohorts. In younger, more secular, cohorts, women’s greater support for economic equality and state intervention and, to a lesser extent, for liberal values makes them more left-wing than men. Because the gender gap varies in this way between cohorts, research focusing on the aggregate-level gap between all men and all women underestimates gender differences in left-right self-placement and vote choice.