Christine L. Day

Complexities of the Gender Gap

Gender differences in political attitudes among whites arise from a variety of sources that may vary from issue to issue. Explanations based on gender-based social roles, basic value differences, socioeconomic status, and womens autonomy are tested in this study through an examination of both compositional and conditional effects. Compositional effects occur when men and women differ on an explanatory variable. Conditional effects occur when a variable has differential effects on the policy preferences of women and men. Using data from the 1996 National Election Study, OLS regression and logit results demonstrate the complex sources of gender gaps across issue areas. Some factors such as education have more of a liberalizing effect on women, while such factors as religiosity have more of a conservatizing effect on men. Overall, issue gender gaps arise both from womens cultural role and from womens increasing autonomy from men.

Public Opinion Toward Costs and Benefits of Social Security and Medicare

Although most surveys show overwhelming support for old-age benefits among people of all ages, few surveys cover cost-benefit trade-offs in aging policy. Questions piloted by the American National Election Studies in 1991 surveyed attitudes not only about Social Security and Medicare expansion but also about taxes on Social Security benefits and the trade-off between increasing taxes and reducing elderly medical benefits. Path analysis is used to examine the influences on these benefit, tax, and cost-benefit trade-off items for elderly and nonelderly respondents. Attitudes toward taxes on Social Security benefits are shaped more by self-interest, and less by partisanship and ideology, than by attitudes toward benefits and cost-benefit trade-offs. Although there is some evidence of generational conflict, there is more conflict within generations than between them.

Gender, Feminism, and Partisanship among Women's PAC Contributors

Objective. We examine the political attitudes and priorities of contributors to two prominent womens PACs for evidence of a gender gap. Methods. A survey of contributors to EMILYs List and to WISH List shows that contributors to both organizations are overwhelmingly women. However, because EMILYs List is so large, there is a sufficient number of men to compare to the two groups of women using percentages and difference-of-means tests. Results. Partisanship is the overriding influence on political priorities and attitudes toward economic and social welfare policy. However, partisanship and gender interact to influence political attitudes in at least two areas. First, EMILYs List men are more supportive of militarism and use of force than are EMILYs List women, but they are less supportive than WISH List women. Second, the women of EMILYs List are more staunchly feminist than either EMILYs List men or WISH List women. Conclusions. We conclude that the source of each groups financial commitment to womens political equality and reproductive rights is different: for EMILYs List women, it is liberal feminism; for WISH List women, it is libertarianism; and for EMILYs List men, it is general egalitarianism.

Feminist Diversity: The Policy Preferences of Women's PAC Contributors

Support for women in politics comes from across the ideological spectrum, as illustrated by the ideological diversity of political action committees devoted to the election of women. This study of major contributors to EMILYs List, which raises money for Democratic pro-choice women candidates, and WISH List, which raises money for Republican pro-choice women candidates, examines the policy preferences of both groups using ordinary least-squares regression. We hypothesized that the relatively liberal policy preferences of EMILYs List contributors, compared to the more conservative attitudes of WISH List contributors, were attributable to three types of explanations: symbolic politics, trust in government, and social status. Results of the analysis support both the symbolic politics explanation, represented by indicators of ideological affiliation and feminist consciousness, and the trust in government explanation. However, differences in the social and demographic characteristics of these two groups explain very little of their divergent policy preferences.