Debunking the myth of a “Traditional” gender gap in the electoral support for Silvio Berlusconi in Italy (1994–2013)

Abstract

Despite increasing gender realignment in voting behavior of most Western democracies, women are usually believed to have disproportionally supported Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing party in Italy. Using a pooled dataset based on six post-election surveys (one for each general election between 1994 and 2013), we find only spurious evidence for such a traditional gender gap in voting. Going beyond a mere “gender gap” approach, we then look for possible intra-gender differentiation. We find that housewives tend to present those attitudes – voting for the center-right, more leader-oriented –, which were traditionally imputed to “women”. Showing the importance of this “intra-gender occupational gap”, we conclude that heterogeneity among women should be taken more seriously by research that combines gender and electoral studies.