The Emergent Gender Gap in Economic Evaluations in the Age of Trump

• In Event: Identity, Populism, and the Gender Gap in Vote Choice

Abstract

Gender gaps in partisanship, vote choice, and public opinion are well documented in the American electorate. Since the election of Donald J. Trump in 2016, however, men’s and women’s economic evaluations have also begun to diverge, with men expressing greater optimism about their personal finances and the broader economy than women. Notably, partisan identification does not fully explain this gender gap.

There are several possible sources of the gender gap in economic evaluations. Previous research suggests that women are less likely to evaluate presidential candidates on the basis of their pocketbook concerns and give greater weight to how well the national economy is faring as a whole than men (Welch and Hibbing 1992). Occupational segregation by gender also remains stubbornly high in the US labor market, with women overrepresented in low-wage jobs that offer few benefits, unsteady schedules and limited opportunities for upward mobility (Blau and Kahn 2016). And women remain more economically vulnerable than men even if they receive benefits like Social Security (Hartmann and Lee 2003).

But none of these factors fully account for the timing of the emergence of this new gap, which has appeared when the unemployment rate is at a near-historic low. We argue that the source of this divergence lies in symbolic rather than pocketbook politics, and is driven largely by men’s response to the Trump era, rather than changes in women’s circumstances. Women’s relative economic precarity is not new. Instead, we hypothesize that Trump’s election gave a boost to many men’s self-concept, which enhanced economic assessments. White men without a college degree, in particular, reported a depressed sense of relative status during the Obama years (see Gidron and Hall 2017). Although men were more likely to lose their jobs during the recession, they also picked up a greater share of employment gains during the recovery that began well before candidate Trump made his famous descent down the escalator. As optimism has risen among these men, they have moved away from women, who remain wary about the state of the economy in the current political climate.

In this paper, we employ pooled cross-sectional data from the Marquette Law School Poll (MLSP), the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group (VSG) and the General Social Survey (GSS) to decompose the gender gap in economic evaluations that has emerged since Trump’s election. Though limited to the state of Wisconsin, the MLSP covers a long timeframe (2012-2019) and its frequency allows us to account for shifts in the political and media environments, including changes in the economy as well as other important developments, such as the #MeToo movement and Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. The VSG is a nationally representative survey (2016-2018) that includes novel measures about personal financial stability. The GSS includes detailed occupational measures and will also be used to examine the relationship between economic evaluations and perceptions of relative status. Together these data allow us to trace and begin to explain the emergence of a new gender gap in American politics.

References

Blau, F. D., & Kahn, L. M. (2016). The gender wage gap: Extent, trends, and explanations. Working Paper 21913, National Bureau of Economic Research.

Gidron, N., & Hall, P. A. (2017). The politics of social status: Economic and cultural roots of the populist right. The British journal of sociology, 68, S57-S84.

Hartmann, H. & Lee, S. (2003). Social Security: The Largest Source of Income for Both Men and Women in Retirement. Policy Report D455. Washington, DC: Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Welch, S., & Hibbing, J. (1992). Financial conditions, gender, and voting in American national elections. The Journal of Politics, 54(1), 197-213.

Authors

• Meghan Condon, Loyola University Chicago

• Amber Wichowsky, Marquette University