The Gender Gap

Gender differences in political behavior are a source of ongoing interest for political pundits, campaign advisors, and students of American politics. In a closely divided nation, even small shifts in the political choices of men and women can have significant electoral consequences. In politics, the gender gap refers to male-female differences in party identification and voting behavior. As a practical matter, the contemporary gender gap (with women more aligned with the Democratic Party) emerged in 1964 with the election of Lyndon B. Johnson. The gender divide has grown incrementally over time, hitting a contemporary high of 14 percentage points in 1996 (see Figure 1). Since then, the size of the political difference between men and women has declined somewhat; the 2004 gender gap in party identification and voting fell to 9.5 and 7 points, respectively. The 2004 vote gap was half of what it was at its apex in 1996, and while one hesitates to make too much of a single point on this larger time series, a sustained contraction of the gender gap could pose rather dire circumstances for the Democratic Party, or, conversely, great fortune for the Republicans.