From Gap to Cleavage: Gender Polarization Among Gen Z in the EU

Across the European Union, Generation Z displays a marked gendered split in political choice that intersects with contemporary cultural conflicts. The gap is smaller in preceding generations and reaches its highest observed level among Gen Z. The paper interprets this pattern in relation to digital fragmentation, feminist mobilization and contested masculine identities, while examining whether the youngest generation represents a distinct break or the sharpest expression of a broader generational divide. Using pooled microdata from the European Election Study 2024 and European Social Survey Round 11, linked to party-position estimates from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey 2024, the analysis covers 37,162 respondents across the EU27. CHES 2024 draws on 609 experts to place 279 parties. The paper compares the parties chosen by women and men across five generations on the general left-right scale, traces the gap by year of birth and maps Gen Z party choice on the GAL--TAN axis across four European welfare-regime groupings. The Male-minus-Female gap in chosen-party left-right position rises from 0.117 CHES points in the Silent Generation to 0.162 among Baby Boomers, 0.246 in Generation X, 0.300 among Millennials and 0.503 among Gen Z. Gen Z therefore records the largest gap, about 0.20 points above Millennials. Birth-year estimates place this result within a broader pattern of stronger gender differentiation among later-born respondents. Among Gen Z, men's chosen parties are also more traditional-authoritarian on average than women's on GAL--TAN in all four welfare-regime groupings, with gaps ranging from 0.495 to 0.677 points. Together, these findings suggest that gender is turning into a crucial political cleavage among Europe's youngest voters, with direct implications for political rights, social cohesion and the vulnerability of democratic values to authoritarian cultural frames.