The Gendered Partisan Divide in Social Networks

• In Event: Recent Advances in Social Network Analysis

Abstract

For more than thirty years in the United States, women have identified as being more politically liberal, and men more politically conservative; this partisan gender gap widened during the last several Presidential elections. Because gender and politics frequently are important bases for homophily in social ties, the partisan gender gap raises questions about how these two identities intersect in social networks. In other words, to what extent does the partisan gender gap lead to the emergence of gendered partisan networks—that is, network clusters where gender and political homophily reinforce one another? We utilize the Student Experiences in Law School Study to examine the extent to which gender and political homophily combine with one another and with triadic closure. Our results show that gender and political homophily most strongly shape social ties at the triadic level, where groups of three students forming a triad share gender and political views, respectively. However, multidimensional homophily at the dyadic level—that is, two students who share both gender and political views—and multidimensionally homogeneous triads—that is, three connected students who share both attributes—receive little support. These findings suggest the need for a more nuanced discussion of the partisan gender gap, which is often examined primarily at the dyadic level in studies of interpersonal networks.

Authors

• Eunkyung Song, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

• Anthony Paik, University of Massachusetts-Amherst