The Gender Generation Gap in Preferences for Social Spending and Redistribution: A Comparative Analysis

Women have been found to be more supportive of redistribution and social spending across established, Western, democracies. The size of these gender gaps varies across time and space, and yet, the comparative literature on attitudinal gender gaps has largely neglected the role of the generational dimension and the political and policy context when it comes to accounting for this variation. In this paper, we look at both the generational and systemic influences on gender differences in attitudes towards redistribution and social spending. Broader contexts and welfare systems should be relevant for understanding attitudinal gender gaps in preferences for social spending and redistribution since women’s greater support for these measures is in theory linked to their greater reliance on welfare services, and so the manner and extent to which these are provided should affect demand in a gendered way. Using comparative survey data from European and Anglo-American democracies, we examine how the broader context impacts on the gender generation gap in support for redistribution and social spending. The extent to which the policy context matters for attitudinal gender gaps has implications for both preferences for state action in the population as well as for the types of gender vote gaps that we might expect to see play out across different contexts.