'Til politics do us part: Gender gap widens Thu Dec 18, 6:41 AM ET
By Susan Page, USA TODAY <http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-12-17-gendergap-cover_x.htm>
Lynne and Scott Albert readily agree on family finances, summer vacations and the perfect holiday gifts for their 5-year-old twins - Care Bears for Cammie, a toy monster truck for Josh.
But when it comes to politics, Lynne, an attorney, and Scott, a venture capitalist with an MBA, often disagree about candidates and issues. He's a Republican worried about taxes and government regulations who is "definitely" voting for President Bush (news - web sites) next year. She's a Democrat concerned about policies that affect women and children, and she's shopping for the candidate with the best chance of beating Bush.
The couple from Chapel Hill, N.C., aren't unusual. Highly educated men and women increasingly view the political world in dramatically different ways: Men are mostly Republicans, women are predominantly Democrats. A modest gender gap among Americans who don't have college educations balloons for those with a college degree or more.
The political divide between college-educated men and women has been growing for a decade. And the trend has become more important as the number of women getting undergraduate and postgraduate degrees has surged.
"Highly educated women are a new Democratic base, almost to the same extent as union voters and ethnic voters," says Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. Meanwhile, Republicans have made gains among all blue-collar workers, especially men.
The result: The stereotypes of the two political parties - Democrats as the party of the working (news - web sites) stiff, Republicans as representing those with money in the bank - no longer fit. Each party has become a more complicated coalition in which social issues and "values" are as much a unifying force as traditional bread-and-butter concerns.
Candidates in both parties are shaping their messages to hold new supporters and win back voters they are losing. Bush's "compassionate conservative" appeal in 2000 was targeted to white-collar women worried about the impact of his agenda on the vulnerable, though a record gender gap indicates he had limited success. The leading Democratic presidential contender, former Vermont governor Howard Dean (news - web sites), caused a controversy last month when he said he wanted to be a candidate for "guys with Confederate flags on their pickup trucks."
He apologized for his reference to the flag but reiterated that Democrats must attract more support from men, especially blue-collar workers. "The gender gap today is driven by the Democrats' inability to get male votes," says Matthew Dowd, a senior strategist for the Bush campaign.
'We write conflicting checks'
In any case, couples in which the husband and wife have college degrees are more likely than ever to disagree when they vote. "We write conflicting checks all the time" as contributions to competing candidates and parties, says Lynne Albert, 41. "We just look at different things as important to us."
Scott Albert, 48, says his experiences as a businessman have made him more concerned about issues Republicans emphasize. "I have to spend surprisingly large amounts of time figuring out the tax ramifications of issues" and dealing with government regulations that are "frankly not quite understandable in many cases," he says. He calls his wife "a little bit softer on the use of tax revenue to help the government largesse."
Not all couples are as forthright with one another about their political differences as the Alberts are. In the last presidential election, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake asked married voters if their spouses had voted the same way they did. Three-quarters of the men said "yes," compared with just half of the women.
That disparity may mean some husbands simply assumed their wives were voting for the candidate they supported. It's possible some wives didn't bother to correct that impression. "We call it the 'Sure, honey' factor,' " Lake says.
Degrees of difference
As education increases, the gender gap grows.
An analysis of more than 40,000 interviews for the USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll from January through November this year shows the trend. Among those with a high school diploma or less, men were inclined by a single percentage point, 45% to 44%, to vote Democratic. Women leaned toward the Democrats by 11 percentage points, 50% to 39%. That's a partisan gap between the sexes of 10 percentage points.
For those who had taken some college courses but not graduated, that gender gap grew to 15 percentage points. Among those with a college degree, it rose to 20. And for voters who had taken postgraduate courses, it reached 28 percentage points - almost triple the gender difference among the least-educated voters.
Men tend to become much more Republican as education and income rise; women move slightly toward the GOP. But there is a twist at the top, among those who have taken postgraduate courses: The number who lean toward the Democrats increases significantly within both groups, although men are still predominantly Republican.
Just why attending college seems to affect the political outlooks of men and women in different ways and to different degrees is the subject of a fair amount of research at, well, colleges.
John Hibbing, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, co-authored a study that concluded the votes of men and women were driven by the state (news - web sites) of the economy. But they assessed the economy by different standards: "We found men tended to vote in terms of their personal economic situation, and women were more likely to vote on the nation's economic situation."
Whether that's because of biology or socialization or something else is the subject of academic study and ideological debate. Whatever the reason, women are more likely to agree with Democrats about the need for a safety net of government social programs. Even upscale women are more likely to imagine that (news - web sites) they might one day need it.
"It's left-brain/right-brain," says Nancy Hurlbert, 56, a civil engineer in Deerfield Beach, Fla., who usually votes Democratic. "Women are just more inclined to be socially aware, and perhaps even from their own personal experience or their mother's experience understand the need for social programs. They know that the government can't be run like a business."
She grew up in a Republican household but as an adult switched her registration to Democratic. Her husband, Thomas, 54, a structural steel supervisor on big construction projects, grew up in a Democratic household but is now registered as a Republican.
"I like smaller, efficient government" - one run more like a business, he says. He likes the idea of relying more on the private sector for government functions - for instance, using government-financed vouchers to help parents send their children to private schools. She opposes that idea. "I don't like too many welfare-type programs," he says. "I don't think the government should be responsible to help somebody from cradle to grave."
President Dole?
The tendency for men and women to vote in different ways isn't new. Women were more likely than men to vote Republican in the 1960s. With Ronald Reagan (news - web sites)'s election in 1980, they began to be more likely to vote Democratic. But the gender gap has become more potent:
. It's gotten wider. In the past two campaigns, men and women would have elected different presidents. In 1996, surveys of voters as they left polling places showed that most women voted for Bill Clinton (news - web sites); men more narrowly supported Bob Dole. In 2000, women by a yawning 11 percentage points voted for Al Gore (news - web sites); men by an equal margin supported George W. Bush.
Some analysts say the Sept. 11 terror attacks narrowed the gender gap. Women who have been leery of Republicans for being too quick to use military force may now see it as essential to protecting their families. The "soccer moms" seen as swing voters in 2000 may be better dubbed "security moms" in 2004.
. The gap between college-educated men and women has grown even more. In 1996, college-educated women voted for Clinton by 12 percentage points; men for Dole by 2 percentage points - a gap of 14 points.
By the 2000 election, that divide had more than doubled. College-educated women voted for Gore by 17 points, men for Bush by 18 - a gap of 35 percentage points.
The differences between men and women in their political views grow as they become more informed and interested in politics, Hibbing says, something that typically happens with more education. Knowing more makes both sides hold their views more strongly. "Liberals become more liberal, and conservatives become more conservative," he says.
. The ranks of college-educated women are exploding. In 1960, nearly 3 million women were college graduates, 5.8% of all women 25 and older. By 2000, that percentage had quadrupled to 23.6% - to more than 22 million people. What's more, the most highly educated men and women are the most likely to register, vote and contribute money to campaigns.
In a closely divided electorate, a swing in the preferences of even a small number of voters can make a big difference. Democrats have appealed to many highly educated women with a commitment to addressing workplace discrimination. The Bush administration has tried to woo some of them with programs designed to help female small-business owners.
June Coldren, 48, says her financial interests as the owner of an oil consulting firm in New Orleans pull her to the Republicans. But she usually votes Democratic. One major reason is her concern about equality for women on the job (news - web sites), a cause she says Democrats have done more to address.
"When I went to law school, I read all these cases where women were still discriminated against, even in this day and age," she says. But her husband, Clint, a businessman who also works in the oil and gas industry, is a reliable Republican. "He's all about cutting taxes," she says.
She never misses an Election Day. "I have to vote to make sure I cancel him out," she says.