Recent discussions have highlighted a significant trend: Young women from Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) and the Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) appear to be leaning increasingly more to the left politically than their male counterparts. This article aims to explore where Europe stands in this regard, using data from the longitudinal European Social Survey between 2008 and 2022 in 16 countries to investigate whether the gender political gap is indeed widening among the young.

Historically, women were more inclined to support right-leaning positions compared to men. However, since the mid-1990s, there has been a notable shift of women to the left, driven by factors such as increased participation in the labour market, economic independence, educational achievements, and secularisation. The recent trend prompts an important question: What factors are driving the resurgence of this ideological gap?

Social media often emerges as a key factor in shaping political preferences, particularly among younger cohorts. Gen Z and Millennials, having grown up as “digital natives”, use the Internet and social media extensively. While social media undoubtedly influences the political preference formation of young cohorts, the direction of this influence is difficult to predict. Social media can create echo chambers, where individuals are primarily exposed to like-minded political views, reinforcing their existing beliefs. Additionally, social media provides women with access to information about gender disparities and connects them with progressive movements such as #MeToo. Conversely, it has also become a powerful tool for political parties, especially far-right movements, to reach and mobilise young audiences.

To measure individuals’ political position, this article uses one question from the European Social Survey: “In politics people sometimes talk of ‘left’ and ‘right’. Where would you place yourself on this scale, where 0 means the left and 10 means the right?” The reported position is standardised to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 in each country-year in the sample to ensure that the main results are not driven by cross-country differences in the measure and allow for comparability. The value can be interpreted as how respondents’ ideological positions deviate from the average for a given year and country. 

The gap in political positioning for individuals aged 18 to 29 is widening: Women are increasingly leaning to the left, and the gap between men and women is more than three times larger in 2021/2022 compared to 2008/2009. On the 0-10 ideological scale, this gap grew from around 0.2 points in 2008/2009 to 0.7 points in 2021/2022 among the youngest age group. The results suggest this widening gap is a cohort effect, as Gen Z and Millennials make up about 75% of this youngest age category.

Clear differences in the political orientation of women and men from Gen Z and Millennials are found across European countries. Two patterns stand out: First, countries in Northern Europe, such as Finland, Sweden, and Norway, and Western Europe, such as France and Belgium, exhibit large gender ideology gaps. On average their gender ideology gap amounts to half a point on the 0 to 10 scale. In contrast, Eastern Europe’s gap is on average 50% smaller. Second, the young generation in Eastern Europe, including the Baltic states (Estonia and Lithuania), Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary, leans significantly more to the right, regardless of gender. In contrast, the Southern countries Spain and Portugal show a less consistent pattern. The Spanish are generally more left-leaning. In Portugal the gender ideology gap resembles that of Western European countries.

Using a linear regression model, this article empirically investigates the association between cohort and political position for both women and men. To rule out the possibility that other confounding factors, such as differences in individual or regional characteristics, are driving the findings, the analysis includes controls for factors such as education, income, and marital status, which are likely related to political opinions. 

The results show that the gender gap in political positioning exists across all cohorts, with women tending to lean 0.03 standard deviations (SD) more to the left than men among Gen X, the Silent Generation, and Boomers. More notably, however, the gap is six times larger for Gen Z and Millennials (0.18 SD). In other words, young women are shifting significantly leftwards, both from the average position of all women and the average position of their younger generation peers.

Social media exposure is often cited as a key driver of political polarisation, particularly among younger cohorts, who are its primary users. There is notable disparity in Internet use across age groups, with younger cohorts (Gen Z and Millennials) consistently reporting daily Internet use about 30 percentage points higher than older cohorts, even in the most recent survey wave. Additionally, younger cohorts spend about two additional hours online per day compared to older generations. How does increased Internet exposure shape political views and polarisation?

While measures of social media exposure are difficult to obtain, recent literature has used 3G coverage as a proxy. The 3G network was the first technology that allowed users to actively browse the Internet from their smartphones, significantly driving social media usage. 

While the 3G rollout is associated with shifts in the political ideologies of both genders, the direction of these shifts differ between rural and urban areas. In both settings, the ideological gap widens with increased 3G coverage. In rural areas, men shift significantly to the right as 3G coverage increases, while women’s political stance does not vary significantly. Conversely, in urban areas, women move toward the left, while men’s position remains stable.
 
While the 3G rollout is clearly related to the emergence of the gender political gap, differentiating between urban and rural areas provides further insights into its direction. The moderate rightward shift of men is driven primarily by those in rural areas. Conversely, the significant leftward shift among women, which accounts for most of the widening gap, is predominantly due to women in urban areas. This urban demographic, being more populated, has a substantial impact on the overall trend.

This article confirms the resurgence of a gender political gap in Europe: Young women tend to lean more to the political left than young men. The trend is mainly driven by Northern and Western European countries. Results suggest that the development of social media influences political opinions while revealing geographical heterogeneity. Rural men tend to shift more to the right as 3G coverage increases while women in urban areas tend to shift to the left. As younger cohorts are more inclined to use social media, these effects are likely to be even more pronounced among them, contributing to the widening political divide observed in youth. The results are consistent whether respondents were asked to identify their own position on the left-right political spectrum (as described in this article) or if their political views were measured based on the party they feel closest to. Future research should investigate whether the political gap translates into different voting behaviours. Additionally, the differential effect of social media exposure on men in urban versus rural areas remains unclear. More investigation is required to understand why social media creates opposing ideological shifts in these groups.

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