Across 28,419 men and 12,861 women who took a CoreOpinion test, the two groups land in different places. 14% of men lean to the economic right, against 6% of women, about 2.5 times as many. The gap is not the product of one country. Men sit further right than women in every one of the 13 country tests with enough people to compare.
Positions use the two compass axes, each running from -100 to +100. On the economic axis, men average -10 and women -21. On the social axis, which runs from libertarian to authority, men average +12 and women +6. We count someone as leaning to one side when they are more than 33 points from the centre.
Show the data
| Lean | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Economic left | 35.4% | 27.2% |
| Economic right | 5.5% | 13.7% |
| Libertarian | 17.3% | 12.7% |
| Authority | 25.8% | 31.0% |
It shows up in every country
Our biggest single source of results is Finland, where the gap is wide, so the first check was whether Finland alone produces it. It does not. Comparing men and women inside each country test, which asks both groups the same questions, men sit further right in all 13 countries. The gap is widest in Brazil (30 points) and narrowest in Taiwan (2 points). In 12 of the 13 countries the gap is large enough that its 95% interval stays above zero. In the rest, fewer women took the test and the interval is wider.
On the social axis the gap is less consistent from country to country.
Show the data
| Test | Women | Men | Economic gap | Social gap | Women on the right | Men on the right |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | 63 | 167 | +30 | +24 | 8% | 21% |
| Finland | 1,791 | 2,927 | +27 | +24 | 6% | 24% |
| Ireland | 79 | 174 | +20 | +38 | 4% | 16% |
| United States | 905 | 2,348 | +19 | +20 | 10% | 24% |
| Australia | 452 | 914 | +19 | +24 | 6% | 16% |
| United Kingdom | 504 | 1,517 | +17 | +18 | 4% | 16% |
| Canada | 304 | 573 | +17 | +11 | 10% | 23% |
| Spain | 487 | 725 | +17 | +17 | 11% | 22% |
| Germany | 221 | 449 | +16 | +17 | 7% | 23% |
| General test | 903 | 3,464 | +14 | +12 | 15% | 27% |
| Italy | 251 | 759 | +13 | +17 | 10% | 21% |
| Austria | 180 | 308 | +10 | +21 | 14% | 23% |
| New Zealand | 148 | 285 | +4 | +6 | 13% | 18% |
| Taiwan | 6,216 | 12,879 | +2 | -4 | 2% | 3% |
The gap is wider among the young
Surveys in several countries have reported young men and young women moving apart politically. Our data points the same way. Among under-25s, men sit 13 points further right than women on the economic axis. Among people 25 and over the gap is 8 points. On the social axis the gaps are 8 and 3 points.
Show the data
| Group | Women | Men | Women on the right | Men on the right |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 25 | 7,734 | 17,679 | 6% | 15% |
| 25 and over | 5,106 | 10,685 | 5% | 11% |
The difference between the young gap and the older gap is itself larger than chance would explain. One caution: about 15% of our under-25s took the Finnish test, which has the widest gap of any country, so part of this pattern may come from Finland. We will be able to split it by country and age together once more people over 25 take the other tests.
Where men and women disagree most
Every test groups its questions into topics, so we can see where the gap comes from. To keep the comparison fair, each topic's gap is measured inside each test and then averaged across the tests that ask about it. We show topics that appear in at least two tests.
Show the data
| Topic | Axis | Gap | Tests | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rights (abortion and end-of-life questions) | Social | 40 | 13 | 3,486 | 7,738 |
| Energy | Economic | 38 | 4 | 570 | 1,267 |
| Immigration | Social | 31 | 15 | 5,402 | 11,129 |
| Identity and rights (legal gender and trans rights) | Social | 30 | 14 | 9,419 | 20,516 |
| Climate | Economic | 28 | 13 | 3,304 | 7,210 |
| Environment and industry | Economic | 28 | 12 | 3,754 | 9,183 |
| Culture and identity (national culture and integration) | Social | 27 | 14 | 4,461 | 9,305 |
| Economy | Economic | 27 | 15 | 3,904 | 8,141 |
The widest gaps are on rights (abortion and end-of-life questions), energy and immigration. On rights and immigration, women sit clearly further toward the libertarian side. On energy, they sit further left.
It does not all run one way. On guns (gun control) and free speech (limits on speech), the gap reverses and women sit further toward the authority side than men, meaning more support for rules and limits. So "women are more libertarian" is too simple. One reading is that women lean toward freedom on questions about their own lives, such as rights and immigration, and toward rules on questions about harm from others, such as guns and free speech.
And on some topics there is barely any gap at all: work and labour and pensions and foreign policy and housing and drugs split men and women by less than 5 points.
Equally swayed by wording
Where men and women stand differs. How much the wording of a question moves them does not. Men average 22.9 on the framing bias scale and women 22.1, a gap of 0.8 points with a 95% interval from 0.5 to 1.0. Inside each country the two groups are also within a point or two of each other. Our left and right analysis found the same thing about political sides.
1,968 people described their gender as other. They lean further left (-26) and further toward the libertarian side (+4) than either men or women, though the group is small and we do not split it further.
See where you land: take the test.
About these figures
- Gender is optional and self-reported. Based on 28,419 men and 12,861 women. More than twice as many men as women took the tests, and the women who do may differ from women in general.
- Country comparisons need at least 50 women and 50 men in the same test. Topic gaps need at least 30 of each in a test and 100 of each in total.
- Intervals are 95% intervals for the difference between men and women.
- Each country test measures positions against its own national debate, so the size of a gap is comparable between countries only loosely.
- This is a self-selected online sample and is not weighted to any population. Full detail is on the methodology page.