The gender gap in political interest revisited

Abstract

To what extent does conventional survey measurement capture the political interest of men and women equally well? We aim to answer this question by relying on unique data from a national online survey in Spain, where we used various questions unpacking the standard indicator of political interest. The findings show that men and women nominate different personal political interests. We also find that the gender gap in political interest vanishes once these specific interests are taken into account. This suggests that at least part of the documented gender gap in general political interest might be due to the fact that, when prompted to think about politics, women disregard their own specific political interests and instead focus on the dominant, male-oriented understanding of politics.

Casting light on citizens’ conceptions of what is ‘political’

“…The question was followed by a list of 24 topics, of which for each the respondents could specify whether they consider them as political or not (i.e., 'yes' or 'no'). 6 This dichotomous measurement follows the common procedure (e.g., Ferrín et al 2020;Fitzgerald 2013), and it aligns with our research question, which is not about degrees of perceived 'politicalness'. 7 The included topics came from two separate sources.…”

Women’s voices in a deliberative assembly: An analysis of gender rates of participation in Ireland’s Convention on the Constitution 2012–2014

“…Their work finds that women are interested in ‘different aspects of political life’ such as domestic politics as opposed to a general interest in politics. Ferrín et al (2019) expand on this concluding thatmen were more likely to show an interest in actors, institutions and conflict over resources, whereas women were significantly more interested in those issues affecting them directly, and more closely related to their own personal experience as citizens (the gender pay gap, abortion, gender-based violence) as well as social policies.…”

The Gender Gap in Water Management Preferences: Analyzing the Influence of Environmental Concern and Political Knowledge

“…This is a crucial issue for the political development of democratic societies, and many studies have tried to discern the variables that affect political knowledge or what social groups can be regarded as more politically informed. The most consistent results suggest that political knowledge is greater among those with higher levels of education, more socioeconomic resources, and in particular, among men (Ferr ın et al 2020;Fraile 2014) According to the gender socialization theory, men are preferentially socialized in the public sphere whereas women take charge of the domestic and private sphere, making political information, which belongs to the public sphere, more costly to women. In addition, the disadvantage of women in terms of employment, salary, studies, among others, detracts from their time and ability to obtain political information (Fraile 2014).…”

“…Recent studies have offered new interpretations about the gender gap in political knowledge taking into account, in addition to everything that has already been mentioned, the resulting bias when politics is measured by topics that men tend to be more interested in (political parties, policies about resource conflicts), while topics closer to daily life that women tend to be more interested in are excluded (local politics, governmental services and social programmes) (Delli Carpini and Keeter 2000;Ferr ın et al 2020).…”