Abstract
Engaging in politics through various activities is an important way for citizens to empower themselves politically. Using public opinion data (World Values Survey 2010–2014), Alexander and Coffé measure gender gaps in mainstream and activist modes of engagement, as well as more general attitudes towards women’s role in politics, thereby focusing on differences between birth cohorts and between countries, depending on their level of gender equality. The chapter concludes with suggestions on how public opinion research could help us to further improve our knowledge on gender differences in political empowerment by including more specific measures which take into account women’s different focus and interests compared with men.
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Notes
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Three countries are not included in the comparative cross-national analysis due to missing information in the UNDP’s Gender Inequality Index.
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This contradicts the findings of Fraile and Gomez (2017) who show in their European comparison that while the gender gap in political interest is similar between age groups in contexts of low gender equality, it increases (and not decreases) significantly with age in contexts of greater gender equality.
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Alexander, A.C., Coffé, H. (2018). Women’s Political Empowerment Through Public Opinion Research: The Citizen Perspective. In: Alexander, A., Bolzendahl, C., Jalalzai, F. (eds) Measuring Women’s Political Empowerment across the Globe. Gender and Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64006-8_2
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