The representation of public opinion towards gender in Europe: What do survey questions measure?

Gender-based issues are becoming increasingly politicised throughout Europe, with examples including debates around reproductive rights and LBTQ+ rights. Accordingly, there is a growing research focus on parties’ emphasis and positions on gender-based issues in their election platforms and communication. In particular, there is a growing interest in the ways in which far right parties have taken up and twisted gender-based issues. However, on the demand-side, much less is understood about voter's attitudes and opinions towards gender equality and specific gender-based issues. Public opinion data represents a critical resource for political parties in the formation of policies, yet a comprehensive understanding of the types of gender-based needs and attitudes that are measured in survey instruments is notably lacking. Addressing this gap is important because accurate representation of voters’ gender-based needs requires accurate measurement of what those needs are. To address this gap, we make use of a novel typology of gender-based needs and apply it to both cross-national and national survey data over a twenty-year period. We map a) what specific gender-based issues and needs are present and missing in survey questionnaires and b) interrogate the dominant gender concepts and narratives present in survey instruments. Our results offer evidence of critical areas of missing measurement in the study of the representation of gender-based needs.