Gender Differences in Partisan Identification and Presidential Performance Ratings

Party Identification: Significant gender differences in party identification have been evident since the early 1980s, whereby larger proportions of women than men are Democrats and larger proportions of men than women are Republicans. Gender Differences were smaller and more variable before 1980. Below are data on party identification of men and women from 1952 to present day. Data from years with an asterisk are from Pew Research Center. All other data are from the American National Election Study (ANES) Times Series Data. Note that "Strong Democrat/Republican" and "Lean Democrat/Republican" are aggregated in the data below.

 

 

Presidential Performance Ratings: A gender gap - which refers refers to differences between women and men - is evident in ratings of presidential performance. In general, women are less likely than men to evaluate favorably the job performance of Republican presidents, and women are more likely than men to evaluate favorably the job performance of Democratic presidents.

Question Wording: Note that responses categories of "Strongly Approve/Disapprove" and "Somewhat Approve/Disapprove" are aggregated in the table below.

1. Washington Post: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president? Do you feel that way strongly or somewhat? (Response categories: strongly approve, somewhat approve, strongly disapprove, somewhat disapprove)
2. CBS News/NY Times: Overall would you say that you approve or disapprove of the job Barack Obama is doing as President? (Response categories: approve, disapprove, don’t know/refused)
3. Newsweek/Princeton and Gallup: Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bill Clinton is handling his job as president? (Response categories: approve, disapprove, no opinion)