The Global Political Gender Divide: New Attitudes & Implications

Published 27 February 2024

Author
Nienke Creemers
2 min read

Research shows a global gender divide in political beliefs and ideologies, with women increasingly adopting progressive worldviews, while men veer conservative. In some countries, like South Korea, this gap is even influencing marriage and birth rates. We unpack the significance of this shift.

  • Ideological Gender Gaps: Globally, a separation is emerging between men’s and women’s political views. American women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more likely to identify as liberal than their male counterparts (Gallup, 2024). Germany shows a 30-point gap, and in the UK, it’s 25 (Financial Times, 2024).

    Meanwhile, in South Korea, the ideological gender gap is even more extreme, with roughly 50 percentage points between men and women, as men adopt conservative beliefs at exponential rates (Financial Times, 2024).

  • Korea’s 4B Movement: Reacting to rampant misogyny, the 4B movement is gaining attention in Korea. 4B stands for the Korean prefix bi-, meaning ‘no’. Women who subscribe to 4B are specifically saying ‘no’ to four things: heterosexual dating, relationships, marriage and child rearing, in a ploy to reject the patriarchy. Women who aren’t part of 4B are also reluctant to marry and have children, due to the unequal division of housework and high rates of domestic violence.

    Animosity between Korean men and women is causing birth rates to plummet, and government initiatives, such as the 2016 National Birth Map (showing the number of women of childbearing age per region) are not helping the problem, but rather causing outrage. For more, see Women Strike on Marriage & Dating in 10 Relationship Trends to Watch, 2024.

  • What Brands Should Know: The political gender gap means brands should segment their audiences based on metrics more nuanced than gender or generation. Alice Evans, a fellow at Stanford University, suggests that Gen Z should be thought of as two separate generations because of this gendered divergence (Financial Times, 2024).