Risk and the gender gap in internal political efficacy in Europe

Abstract

This study confirms the existence of a substantial gender gap in internal political efficacy in contemporary European democracies with survey evidence from the ESS08 and 09 waves. This gap is rooted in gendered patterns of socialisation according to which men are more likely than women to be socialised in ways that emphasise psychological traits such as assertiveness, predisposition to risk, competition, or self-promotion. Findings show that those who perceive themselves as ready to take risks are more likely to feel able to play an active role in politics. Using mediation analysis, this article shows that part of the gender gap in internal political efficacy is a result of the lower inclination of women to take risks in comparison to men. These findings confirm the masculine character of the political realm. A realm that is often perceived by citizens to be more in line with gender stereotypes about men.

Keywords:

• Gender gap
• internal political efficacy
• gender stereotypes
• risk
• agentic model

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Laia Balcells for sharing the pain of the loss of Carolina and for helping to prevent me from giving up this work.

Notes

1 Data retrieved from: https://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/downloadwizard.

2 We acknowledge that this is a limited way to measure gender given that sex and gender are distinct concepts: while sex refers to the biological condition linked to genitals and chromosomes, gender refers to comportments related to belonging to a given sex category (West and Zimmerman 1987). Unfortunately, we had no additional information to measure the gender of the respondent.

3 We do not expect that the effect of gender completely disappears, because that would mean that self-perceptions of risk explain all the remaining association between gender and internal political efficacy. Theoretically speaking other psychological factors might be at play, so we expect a partial (instead of complete) mediation.

4 For those countries included in the two waves we provide mean values of the two waves.

5 The coefficient corresponding to the interaction term between gender and self-perceptions of proclivity to take risks is = –0.017 (0.009) with corresponding p = 0.06.

6 The wording of the three items is: (i) ‘how confident are you in your own ability to participate in politics?’; (ii) ‘How easy do you personally find it to take part in politics?’ and (iii) how able do you think you are to take an active role in a group involved with political issues?

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación under grant: PID2019-197445GB.

Notes on contributors

Marta Fraile

Marta Fraile is Senior Research Fellow and vice-director of the Institute of Public Goods and Policies (IPP) at CSIC. She has held teaching and research positions in different universities in Europe. Her research spans the fields of public opinion, gender and politics, and political participation. She has published in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Electoral Studies, European Journal of Political Science, European Union Politics, Political Psychology, Political Research Quarterly, among others. [[email protected]]

Carolina de Miguel Moyer

Carolina de Miguel Moyer (1979–2020) was Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto since 2012. She published in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Electoral Studies and among others. When Carol left us she was completing her book manuscript: Divided Geographies: Diversity, Inclusive Parties, and the Conditions for Nationalization. [[email protected]]