Are new generations of women more left-wing than men? Generations and gender gaps in attitudes to inequality and social services

This paper analyses whether gender gaps in attitudes to income inequality, redistribution, and the welfare state in Western Europe have changed across generations. Whilst generational patterns of value change have received considerable attention, we test whether these differ between women and men. This matters in Western Europe, where younger generations of women and men have been found to differ significantly in their party choice and ideology. We use data from the European Social Survey and age–period–cohort modelling to estimate whether generations differ in their gender gaps in economic attitudes. We find that for generations born from 1946 onwards women are more supportive of government intervention on inequality, redistribution, and service provision than men, but this gender gap is relatively stable for subsequent generations. This has important implications for understanding ‘gendered’ generational change in political attitudes, and casts doubt on the plausibility of changes in gender gaps in economic attitudes as a driver of the emergence of the gender gap in support for left-wing parties.