Las mujeres jóvenes son el grupo social más de izquierdas y las mujeres mayores el más de derechas

Las mujeres jóvenes son más de izquierdas que los hombres, mientras que las mujeres mayores son más de derechas. Un estudio plantea que la menor religiosidad de las jóvenes explicaría los cambios.

THE CONVERSATION.- Young women across Western Europe and Canada are more left wing than their male counterparts, according to new research I carried out that also shows among older voters women more likely to be right wing than men.

We already know that younger people are often more likely to vote for left-wing parties than their older peers, but it seems this trend is particularly pronounced among women. Younger women are the most left wing in their voting habits and older women the most right wing when we compared voters by age and gender. This is shown in a study using data on over 40,000 people from the World Values Survey/European Values Study in Western Europe and Canada, 1989-2014.

This trend is summarised in the graph below. Negative numbers indicate more men voting for a left-wing party in a given country. Positive numbers indicate more women voting for a left-wing party. In almost all countries, women born after 1955 are more likely to vote for left-wing parties than men of the same age group. Conversely, in many countries, women born before 1955 are less likely to vote for left-wing parties than their male peers.

How people vote. Author provided

The research also showed that the gender gap in left-wing voting became larger for each new birth cohort. So, for example, the difference between women and men in left-wing voting was even greater for those born 1975-85 than it was for those born 1965-75. This suggests that over time we should expect women to become more and more left wing relative to men, as younger, more left-wing cohorts of women replace older, more right-wing cohorts in the population.

A woman takes part in a march for family values in Poland. EPA

The analysis shows that the decline of religiosity is crucial to explaining the trend. Older women are more religious and their religiosity is also more important for their vote choice compared to younger women. Religious voters are more likely to hold conservative social values and attachments to religious parties. This means that older women are more likely to vote for parties on the right – especially Christian democrat parties. Similarly, they are less likely to vote for parties on the left.

Seguir leyendo...