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Explaining the Gender Gap in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1980-1992

SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY

R. Michael Alvarez

CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Jonathan Nagler

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE

This article compares the voting behavior of women and men in presi dential elections since 1980. We test whether the different levels of salience which men and women attribute to different issues or the different pref erences men and women have on issues best accounts for the gender gap. Utilizing theories of different issue emphasis between men and women, we use a multivariate model to demonstrate that a combination of re spondent views on the economy, social programs, military action, abor tion, and ideology can consistently explain at least three-fourths of the gender gap in the 1984, 1988, and 1992 elections. We show that, consis tent with prior research on individual elections, women placed more emphasis on the national economy than men, and men placed more em phasis on pocketbook voting than women. We add evidence showing that women have consistently more negative assessments of the economy than do men, suggesting that a part of what has been considered a Re publican-Democratic gender gap is really an anti-incumbent bias on the part of women. We also clarify the interpretation of partisan identifica tion in explaining the gender gap.

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