The Dynamics of the Partisan Gender Gap

Box‐Steffensmeier, Janet M.; Boef, Suzanna De; Lin, Tse Min

doi:10.1017/s0003055404001315

Cited by 256 publications

(149 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

143

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Although this pattern can be partially explained by women becoming more liberal and moving into the Democratic Party (Shapiro and Mahajan 1986), party sorting is even more prevalent among men (Box-Steffensmeier, De Boef, and Lin 2004;Kaufmann and Petrocik 1999;Norrander 1999). Between 1952 and2004, there was only a 5 percent decline in the share of Republican women, yet there was a 16 percent decline in the share Democratic men (Kaufmann 2006).…”

Section: Gender Gaps In Public Opinion and Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

American Party Women

Barnes

Cassese

2016

Political Research Quarterly

114

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ArticleTraditionally, women were more politically conservative than men. Yet, in the early 1980s, women began realigning, shifting to the left of men and reversing the gender gap in developed democracies across the globe (BoxSteffensmeier, De Boef, and Lin 2004;Inglehart and Norris 2003). Today, women in the United States are more likely to identify with the Democratic Party, vote for Democratic Party candidates, and hold liberal positions on social issues. Although scholars have devoted considerable attention to understanding the gender gap in public opinion, existing research focuses almost exclusively on average differences between men and womenemphasizing women's liberal tendencies and defining women's political identity almost entirely in liberal terms. While women's greater average liberalism is well established empirically, approximately one in four women identify with the Republican Party-a figure that translates into millions of American women who buck this liberal trend (Deckman 2016). Because existing research has focused on average differences between men and women, we know little about sources of heterogeneity among women.Does the gender gap extend to the Republican Party, with Republican women holding more liberal views than their male counterparts? To date, most research about Republican women has focused on the elite level, investigating factors like party structure, activists and donors, conservative women's groups, and candidates for political office (Cooperman and Crowder-Meyer 2015;Thomsen 2015). Comparatively little research has considered the attitudes and issue preferences of Republican women in the electorate. 1 In recent years, the United States has seen a rise in high-profile Republican women running for office and the development of a conservative women's movement (Schreiber 2008(Schreiber , 2014. The surge in conservative appeals to women, coupled with the increased salience of and polarization on "women's issues"-for example, the Mommy Wars and the Republican War on Women-requires that scholars revisit the conventional wisdom about women's political identities.Building on the burgeoning body of research on partisan sorting, we develop expectations regarding the intersection between gender and party. Theories of partisan sorting suggest that women and men sort themselves into the party that best represents their views-such that the AbstractResearch on the gender gap in American politics has focused on average differences between male and female voters. This has led to an underdeveloped understanding of sources of heterogeneity among women and, in particular, a poor understanding of the political preferences of Republican women. We argue that although theories of ideological sorting suggest gender gaps should exist primarily between political parties, gender socialization theories contend that critical differences lie at the intersection of gender and party such that gender differences likely persist within political parties. Using survey data from the 2012 American National Election ...

show abstract

Section: Gender Gaps In Public Opinion and Partisanshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

American Party Women

Barnes

Cassese

2016

Political Research Quarterly

114

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Women in the United States, for instance, are known to be more pro-Democrat in general than men, and this tendency has grown over the past few decades (Edlund & Pande, 2002;Box-Steffensmeier, De Boef, & Lin 2004). Greenberg (1998) concludes: "There is no question that, in general, women are more likely than men to favor activist government, the sort of agenda traditionally associated with the Democratic Party."…”

Section: Empirical Testingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Daughters and Left-Wing Voting

Oswald¹,

Powdthavee²

2010

Review of Economics and Statistics

140

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-What determines human beings' political preferences? Using nationally representative longitudinal data, we show that having daughters makes people more likely to vote for left-wing political parties. Having sons leads people to favor right-wing parties. The paper checks that our result is not an artifact of family stopping rules, discusses the predictions from a simple economic model, and tests for possible reverse causality.

show abstract

“…To date, much of the work relaxing this homogeneity assumption focuses on how different observed levels of political information and sophistication lead voters to consider different types and numbers of variables in arriving at a vote choice or political support (e.g. Rivers 1988;Sniderman et al 1991;Johnston and Pattie 1996;Gomez and Wilson 2001;Cutler 2002;Box-Steffensmeier et al 2004;Box-Steffensmeier and De Boef 2008;Carsey and Layman 2006;Roy 2009;Bafumi and Shapiro 2009). However, change and continuity in an individual's political choices and their determinants may also be a function of unobserved heterogeneity or differing forces that cannot be modeled directly.…”

Section: Unobserved Heterogeneity In Individual Partisan (In)stabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Individual-Level Dynamics of Bounded Partisanship

Neundorf¹,

Stegmueller²,

Scotto

2011

Public Opinion Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the past half century, scholars utilized a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches to study the attachment or identification voters have with political parties. However, models on partisan (in)stability ignore its bounded character. Making use of Mixed Latent Markov Models we measure change and stability of individual-level West German partisan identification captured over a 24 year period via the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSEOP). Results suggest that distinctive subpopulations exist, which follow different patterns of partisan stability. One party's loss is not necessarily another party's gain.

show abstract

The Dynamics of the Partisan Gender Gap

Cited by 256 publications

References 42 publications

American Party Women

American Party Women

Daughters and Left-Wing Voting

The Individual-Level Dynamics of Bounded Partisanship

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About