Republicans Are Men, Democrats Are Women . . .
Jan 26th, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 10 Comments |
(Another entry in my ongoing struggle with the idea of “groups” . . .)
I was looking at the exit polls for the SC primaries and found the following interesting:
The Republicans who voted were 49% Female, 51% Male.
The Democrats who voted were 61% Female, 39% Male.
So I decided to check the other states. Here’s what I found:
Iowa
Republicans: 44% Female, 56% Male
Democrats: 57% Female, 43% Male
New Hampshire
Republicans: 43% Female, 57% Male
Democrats: 57% Female, 43% Male
Michigan
Republicans: 44% Female, 56% Male
Democrats: 57% Female, 43% Male
Nevada
Republicans: 48% Female, 52% Male
Democrats: 59% Female, 41% Male
So, on average:
Republicans: 45.6% Female, 54.4% Male (8.8% more male)
Democrats: 58.2% Female, 41.8% Male (16.4% more female)
Which means voting Republicans are more evenly-divided than voting Democrats. In fact, the gap between females and males among voting Democrats is 1.2% shy of being double the gap between males and females among voting Republicans.
I can’t tell whether or not the fact that most of the primaries so far have been “open” affects these numbers. CNN.com doesn’t say whether they’ve grouped people by party membership or by the party of the candidate they’re voting for.
As best I can tell from the US Census Bureau data, the US population as of July 1, 2006 was estimated to be 50.7% Female, 49.3% Male. I don’t feel like calculating the percentages for voting-age people. And I don’t know how citizenship figures into the USCB data either.
It should be pointed out that this is pretty much unique to the United States. In most industrialized countries, women tend to vote for the more conservative party and men tend to vote for the more liberal party (though the gaps aren’t quite as large, I believe). I mention this because I’ve heard all sorts of crazy theories “explaining” why women tend to vote for the left and men tend to vote for the right in America. Almost none of these theories gives an America-specific reason and therefore they can’t be true.
[...] Micah Tillman put an intriguing blog post on Republicans Are Men, Democrats Are Women . . .Here’s a quick excerpt [...]
That is interesting information, but it has been that way for awhile. I’m not entirely sure why… perhaps a lot of women tend to be pro-life and men tend to be fiscal conservatives? Just a guess.
Maybe the roots can be traced back to the feminist revolution….
I have no idea. :)
[...] TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime wrote an interesting post today on Republicans Are Men, Democrats Are Women . . .Here’s a quick excerptI was looking at the exit polls for the SC primaries and found the following interesting: [...]
Here’s my 2 cents:
Democrates tend to favor more direct intervention in taking care of the poorest among us.
Republicans tend to favor more trickle down sorts of theories about taking care of the poorest among us.
If we assume (and I think I do) that the stereotype is correct, that women tend to be more relationate and compassionate where as men tend to be more analytical, I think we’d get pretty close to the results we see.
Women would tend to vote in a way that would lead to more direct relief and support of issues like poverty.
If we further follow the steroetype (which again, might turn out to be right) that America has a wider gap between rich and poor and offers less support to the very poorest, we can perhaps account for Andrew’s point, that this is a uniquely American phenemona.
I’m suggesting that your average Jane Doe in America looks at her situation and compares it with the poorest among us and thinks that more should be done directly to fight this difference. The average Jane Doe, meanwhile, in Sweden, sees less of a difference between her every day existencer and the poorest in her society. She therefore has less impetus to vote for more direct intervention.
The difference in America first shows up in 1980, the first run of Ronald Reagan. Prior to that, I believe women were slightly more likely than men to vote Republican (and were generally more conservative than men). So I’m guessing that what occurred in America is polarization over the abortion issue, given to us by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. The United States has the most liberal abortion policy in the entire world. The Supreme Court, by short-circuiting the process, denied the States the usual table compromises that were reached everywhere else in the industrialized world. The debate is usually framed so that almost everybody I meet seems to believe that overturning Roe v. Wade would immediately illegalize all abortions. This is nonsense, of course. Perhaps Utah and Louisiana would bar all abortions, but virtually no other state would. However, the rhetoric on both sides is aimed toward convincing people that the Democrats will allow all abortions (as Roe v. Wade currently does, the Supreme Court has allowed virtually no restrictions at all) and the Republicans will ban all abortions. Women, generally more religious than men in other countries, also seem to be more secular in America and abortion could be a big part of the reason why.
Amanda’s theory of the feminist revolution is not at all a bad one. Feminism is associated with the political left in this country, but in a great many countries, women were given the vote by a religious movement and the party now associated with the political right. (This was true in early states in America as well. Women’s suffrage gained traction earliest in Western states and territories. Wyoming terrority was the first in the country in 1869. The reason this was done was because married men were afraid of being outvoted by single unattached men who were immigrating into the territory. The easiest way to ensure their voting advantage was to give their wives the vote as well.)
Jeff’s argument is highly unlikely to be right since just about the only other country which shows the same pattern as the U.S. is. . . Sweden, which has one of the smallest gaps between rich and poor. (The United Kingdom is the only other country which seems to be showing this pattern as well. I have no theory to explain either of those countries.)
Age must also be accounted for since there is a extremely significant skew in age (far more old people vote than young). I’m not sure how this would effect the differences you noted. Women live longer?
Chuck, the problem with that theory is that the gender gap is smallest among people age 65+, the only age group where women will outnumber men by any significant degree. Younger ages have the largest gender gap, continually getting smaller the older the voters are (but never disappearing).
Some researchers have hypothesized that it has something to do with marriage and divorce. (This is logical since the “marriage gap” is far larger than the gender gap, even after adjusting for income, race, age, church attendance, etc.) The evidence for this is that the more divorce a state has, the larger the gender gap and women are less likely to support the Democrats after marriage, but more likely after divorce. This does fit the timeline. 1980 was the peak of the divorce rate in the United States.
Well my wife is Democrat but I am Independent who will vote Democrat in this election. Doe sthis make me a cross-dresser? LOL