The Gender Gap in Water Management Preferences: Analyzing the Influence of Environmental Concern and Political Knowledge

The gender gap in political knowledge is a classical problem of Western democracies. In the 21st century, political knowledge is still unequally distributed between men and women, as many cross-section studies have shown. This is an indicator of women’s disempowerment and the distance which remains to be covered to achieve an inclusive and sustainable society. Could public policies and gender equality laws change the situation? Using a longitudinal database in which 600,000 survey responses are analysed from 1996 to 2017, this case study of Spain aims to shed some light on this question. It combines sociological and political approaches in line with the development theory of the gender gap of Inglehart and Norris (2000, 2003), whose core argument is that modernization changes cultural attitudes toward gender equality. From this perspective, this paper proposes the following hypothesis: the modernization process of Spain (from a dictatorship to a democracy) has given rise to changes in traditional sex roles, driving women‘s access to political knowledge and diminishing the gender gap. This is a step towards achieving objective number 5 of the 2030 United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development (gender equality and empowerment of women and girls), according to which gender equality is not only a fundamental human right but a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world.

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The Roots of the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge in Adolescence

Political Behavior ◽

10.1007/s11109-010-9142-9 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 33 (3) ◽

pp. 505-533 ◽

Cited By ~ 45

Author(s):

Jennifer Wolak ◽

Michael McDevitt

Keyword(s):

Gender Gap ◽

Political Knowledge

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Adult roles and the gender gap in political knowledge: a comparative study

West European Politics ◽

10.1080/01402382.2019.1577069 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 42 (7) ◽

pp. 1368-1389 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Monica Ferrín ◽

Marta Fraile ◽

Gema M. García-Albacete

Keyword(s):

Comparative Study ◽

Gender Gap ◽

Political Knowledge ◽

Adult Roles

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Unequal Returns to Education: How Female Teachers Narrow the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge

The Journal of Politics ◽

10.1086/707061 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 82 (2) ◽

pp. 781-785

Author(s):

Jason Giersch ◽

Martha Kropf ◽

Elizabeth Stearns

Keyword(s):

Gender Gap ◽

Returns To Education ◽

Political Knowledge ◽

Female Teachers

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Gender Differences in Political Knowledge: Bringing Situation Back In

Journal of Experimental Political Science ◽

10.1017/xps.2017.21 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 39-55 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Toni Alexander Ihme ◽

Markus Tausendpfund

Keyword(s):

Stereotype Threat ◽

Gender Gap ◽

Gender Stereotypes ◽

Online Survey ◽

Political Knowledge ◽

The Political ◽

Structural Factors ◽

Knowledge Test ◽

Political Sciences ◽

New Perspective

AbstractOne of the best-known empirical findings in the political sciences is the gender difference in political knowledge: women show less political knowledge than men. Conventional research argues that this difference is mainly a product of socialization, structural factors, and biology. Our paper brings a new perspective to the explanation of the gender gap in political knowledge. Based on an online survey and an experiment1, we emphasize the relevance of gender stereotypes as a situational pressure that reduces the performance of women in a political knowledge test. Two conclusions emerge from the analysis: First, our results indicate the existence of a negative stereotype related to the political knowledge of women. Second, the activation of gender stereotypes affects performance on a political knowledge test. Consistent with previous research on stereotype threat, our results indicate that the performance of men on a political knowledge test is affected by gender stereotypes.

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Guessing and Forgetting: A Latent Class Model for Measuring Learning

Political Analysis ◽

10.1093/pan/mpw010 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 226-242 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

M. Ken Cor ◽

Gaurav Sood

Keyword(s):

Monte Carlo Simulation ◽

Monte Carlo ◽

Gender Gap ◽

Latent Class ◽

Latent Class Model ◽

Political Knowledge ◽

Difference Score ◽

Class Model ◽

Mild Assumption ◽

Simple Difference

Guessing on closed-ended knowledge items is common. Under likely-to-hold assumptions, in the presence of guessing, the most common estimator of learning, difference between pre- and postprocess scores, is negatively biased. To account for guessing-related error, we develop a latent class model of how people respond to knowledge questions and identify the model with the mild assumption that people do not lose knowledge over short periods of time. A Monte Carlo simulation over a broad range of informative processes and knowledge items shows that the simple difference score is negatively biased and the method we develop here is unbiased. To demonstrate its use, we apply our model to data from Deliberative Polls. We find that estimates of learning, once adjusted for guessing, are about 13% higher. Adjusting for guessing also eliminates the gender gap in learning, and halves the pre-deliberation gender gap on political knowledge.

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The gender gap in political knowledge revisited: Australia’s Julia Gillard as a natural experiment

European Journal of Politics and Gender ◽

10.1332/251510818x15272520831148 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 197-220

Author(s):

Ian McAllister

Keyword(s):

Gender Gap ◽

Natural Experiment ◽

Prime Minister ◽

Political Knowledge ◽

Descriptive Representation ◽

Representation Of Women

Surveys have found a persistent gender gap in political knowledge, with women knowing less about politics than men. This article tests the explanations for the gap using surveys collected in Australia between 2001 and 2016. The results show that the gender gap in knowledge was stable between 2001 and 2007, but declined significantly in 2010, and returning to trend in 2013 and 2016. The decline in 2010 is largely accounted for by the election of Australia’s first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, which resulted in women displaying greater media attentiveness. The results confirm other research suggesting that enhanced descriptive representation of women may help to close the gender gap in political knowledge.

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Modeling Guessing Components in the Measurement of Political Knowledge

Political Analysis ◽

10.1017/pan.2017.21 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 25 (4) ◽

pp. 483-504

Author(s):

Tsung-han Tsai ◽

Chang-chih Lin

Keyword(s):

Gender Gap ◽

Item Difficulty ◽

Multiple Choice ◽

Political Knowledge ◽

Proposed Model ◽

Item Characteristics ◽

Item Responses ◽

Multiple Choice Items ◽

Biased Estimates

Due to the crucial role of political knowledge in democratic participation, the measurement of political knowledge has been a major concern in the discipline of political science. Common formats used for political knowledge questions include multiple-choice items and open-ended identification questions. The conventional wisdom holds that multiple-choice items induce guessing behavior, which leads to underestimated item-difficulty parameters and biased estimates of political knowledge. This article examines guessing behavior in multiple-choice items and argues that a successful guess requires certain levels of knowledge conditional on the difficulties of items. To deal with this issue, we propose a Bayesian IRT guessing model that accommodates the guessing components of item responses. The proposed model is applied to analyzing survey data in Taiwan, and the results show that the proposed model appropriately describes the guessing components based on respondents’ levels of political knowledge and item characteristics. That is, in general, partially informed respondents are more likely to have a successful guess because well-informed respondents do not need to guess and barely informed ones are highly seducible by the attractive distractors. We also examine the gender gap in political knowledge and find that, even when the guessing effect is accounted for, men are more knowledgeable than women about political affairs, which is consistent with the literature.

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