Women's Support for Vaccine Aid during the Global Pandemic

• In Event: Gender and the Pandemic: Attitudes, Policy Support, and Representation

Abstract

The gender and foreign policy literature has consistently found that women are more supportive of humanitarian aid than men. Evidence shows, for instance, that women are more likely to support foreign aid for disadvantaged groups/nations and to endorse humanitarian interventions abroad. At the same time, women are less likely to support the use of force, especially when human fatalities are high. There is no consensus in the literature, however, about how women respond when the costs of humanitarian intervention entail high human costs.

Against the backdrop of escalating Covid-related deaths and vaccine scarcity globally in 2021, we tested whether these gendered patterns in public opinion extend to the case of vaccine aid during the early stages of the pandemic. Are women more likely to support vaccine aid abroad compared to men, even when vaccines are scarce in one’s own country? What effect does vaccination status have on support for vaccine aid abroad, if any? Under what conditions are women less supportive of vaccine aid?

This paper uses original panel data from a two-wave survey fielded in South Korea in 2021, when the vaccination rate remained at about 35%, and 2022, when virtually everyone (95%) that wanted a vaccine had received one. South Korea meets key conditions for assessing the role of gender and vaccine status on views of vaccine aid. South Korea went through a period of scarcity in 2021 when there weren’t enough vaccines to meet the demand from the public, generating variation in vaccination status contingent on tightly regulated government policy. In contrast to many other nations, Korea also didn’t experience any partisan divisions on vaccines. No party represented in the legislative branch opposed the government’s rollout of vaccines. These conditions make it easier to test for gendered differences in opinion on vaccine aid among those that have received vaccines relative to those that haven’t.

We find, in contrast to the literature, that women are not more supportive of vaccine aid to the developing world. Moreover, while our analysis shows that vaccinated citizens were more likely to support South Korea’s vaccine aid to developing countries, this was not the case for women. Women who had received the shot remained less likely to support the donation of vaccines abroad than men. The paper draws from theories of gender and foreign policy opinion to test various explanations to account for women being less supportive of vaccine aid to foreign countries.

The study is important for both practical and theoretical reasons. The findings have policy implications on crafting domestic public support for foreign vaccine aid when resources are constrained. At the same time, the results suggest the need to revisit some of the explanations of the gender gap in foreign policy opinion in the context of vaccine aid in the face of a pandemic.

Authors

• Joonbum Bae, Colorado State University

• Changkeun Lee

• YuJung Julia Lee, Colorado State University