Gender and the pandemic in political ideology: The case of Spain

Zuazu, Izaskun Working Paper Gender and the pandemic in political ideology: The case of Spain ifso working paper, No. 37 Provided in Cooperation with: University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso) Suggested Citation: Zuazu, Izaskun (2024) : Gender and the pandemic in political ideology: The case of Spain, ifso working paper, No. 37, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socio-Economics (ifso), Duisburg This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/300519 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ uni-due.de/soziooekonomie/wp ifso working paper Izaskun Zuazu Gender and the Pandemic in Political Ideology: The case of Spain 2024 no.37 Gender and the Pandemic in Political Ideology: The case of Spain Izaskun Zuazu, Institute for Socio-Economics, University of Duisburg-Essen * June 28, 2024 Abstract Gender gaps in political ideology transformed from traditional gaps (women showing more right-leaning than men) to modern gaps (women showing more left-leaning) in the last four decades in Western countries. However, Spain lagged behind in this transformation. This paper analyses how labour market status and the pandemic can affect gender differences in left-right self-placement using data on 600,000 individuals during 2008-2021. Using various indicators of the incidence of COVID-19, the paper associates the pandemic with an increasing rightwing leaning for both women and men. However, this correlation is stronger for men. While the pandemic made men more moderate and less leftist, it made women less moderate. The estimates crucially account for labour market status and generational replacement: the results show greater polarization among younger generations. The results point to gender as a relevant political cleavage in Spain in the near future. Keywords: political ideology, COVID-19 pandemic, gender-generational gap, labour market status JEL: D72, J16 * izaskun.zuazu-b[email protected] This paper was written while being a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Society (MPIfG) in Cologne (Germany). 1 Introduction Women and men tend to show different political attitudes, and these differences have evolved during the last decades. Traditional gender gaps, by which women show more conservative ideals, were transformed into modern gender gaps, by which women lean more to the left, in most of the Western economies at the end of the 20th century (Inglehart & Norris, 2000; Inglehart et al., 2003). The secular transformation characterized by the incorporation of women in the paid workforce, together with the drop in fertility, rising divorce rates and changing gender norms, among other forces, are considered fundamental aspects in this conversion (Edlund & Pande, 2002; Abendsch¨on & Steinmetz, 2014; Dassonneville, 2020). Gethin et al. (2022) also confirm the reversal of electoral divides between women and men in a long-run analysis of Western countries. Spain posits an interesting platform to study gender gaps in political ideology, as together with Italy and Luxemburg Inglehart & Norris (2000), lagged behind in the adoption of a modern paradigm in gender gaps in political ideology. This paper empirically analyses the role of gender in the evolution of political ideology in Spain in recent years, paying special attention to labour market status and generational replacement. The pandemic had relatively more adverse effects for women in terms of employment and unpaid care work burdens (Farr´e et al., 2021; Hern´andez-Alb´ujar et al., 2022), which could exacerbate preexisting gender disparities. Thus, this paper considers whether the pandemic could influence political ideology differently for women and men. Recent literature provides evidence on the influence of the pandemic in political attitudes (Barberia et al., 2021). The existing findings associate the pandemic with increasing vote intention but not in political ideology (Bol et al., 2021) and the so-called rallyaround-the-flag effect (Schraff, 2021). This incipient literature shows also gender-differential trends, by which women were less likely to support the government and were more likely to support stricter health measures during the pandemic (Mazza & Scipioni, 2022; Stockemer et al., 2021). This paper constructs a unique dataset with survey data between April 2008 and July 2021, collected from the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research Barometer (CIS) with a monthly frequency. I merge these survey information on an independent cross-section of individuals with official statistics of the incidence of the pandemic from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Using linear probability models, the paper significantly associates women with a more leftist political ideology, but this hinges upon labour market status. Home-maker women 1 or pensioners who never worked in the paid workforce are more likely to self-place in more rightist positions than men. The pandemic is positively correlated with more rightist positions. This association also hinges upon a gender basis: although the pandemic is associated with a positive sign in political ideology for both women and men, it seems to be stronger for men. Complementing these results, the paper sheds lights on paper these gender interplays for political polarization. The paper suggests an important generational gender divide among the Z-Generation and intra-gender gaps (between women in the labour market and home-maker women) in Spain in coming years. All these models are robust to the use of ordered probit models and remain after including the role of generational replacement and different measures of the incidence of the pandemic. The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The next section reviews the related literature. Section 3 explains the data, shows descriptive evidence and the empirical specification. Section 4 shows the results and robustness checks. Section 5 discusses the main implications of the results. 2 Literature Review and Hypotheses The implications of the pandemic for political ideology are far from clear. The existential thread of a virus and the economic downturn of the pandemic could increase preferences for stability and traditional values over change and progressive attitudes, hence fostering right-wing ideals (Jost et al., 2009; Rosenfeld & Tomiyama, 2021). To the contrary, rising unemployment and economic inequality can promote preferences towards redistribution and pro-poor policies, hence fostering leftwing ideals (Emmenegger et al., 2015; Kurer, 2020; Wiertz & Rodon, 2021). On top of these, gender disparities in the economic and health consequences of the pandemic could lead to gender differential effects in the political ideology. In this sense, the pandemic could have fed gender as a political cleavage. This section reviews existing evidence and explores whether and how the pandemic could affect differently the political ideology of women and men’s. 2.1 Gender and political ideology Gender has been considered a relatively smaller cleavage than race, religion or ethnicity in factoring voter turnout and political ideology (Lipset et al., 1967). However, recent literature 2 sheds new light on how gender gaps in turnout, as a facet of political behaviour, depend on the type of elections (Kostelka et al., 2019). Additionally, research has focused on support for radical-right populist to find lower gender gaps when there is less country-level gender equality at large (Donovan, 2023). Further, gender disparities in left-right self-placement have been found to matter in electoral strategies (Box-Steffensmeier et al., 2004) and affect economic policies, such as social expenditure as a fraction of the GDP (Iversen & Rosenbluth, 2008).1The prevailing evidence suggests that women are associated with more rightist ideals, but this is transformed along the development spectrum, where women in advanced and post-industrial societies show more left-wing positions than men (Inglehart & Norris, 2000; Inglehart et al., 2003). For Diekman & Schneider (2010), the core principles of gender divergence of political attitudes are related to diffuse gender roles (e.g., broad expectations based on sex) as well as differential specific roles (e.g., family and occupational roles). Abendsch¨on & Steinmetz (2014) use cross-country data for 28 European Union states in 2008 to find evidence that gender and labour market status has a role in left-right party preferences. They associate women with a lower left-right party vote, thus placing women at the left of men. They show that being employed, or other labour market status increases the probability of voting rightwing, with respect to unemployment. Nonetheless, the none in the labour market category is not further disaggregated in Abendsch¨on & Steinmetz (2014). Shorrocks (2018) considers in detail the role of generational replacement by considering the year of birth and the interaction with gender for a subset of European countries and Canada. While she finds that women from younger generations show greater support for economic equality and state intervention and, relatively fewer supporters of liberal values makes them more left-wing than men. She associated home-maker status with a higher political ideology (meaning more right-wing) and less probability of left-wing party preference. Dassonneville (2020) complements the literature by taking a generational perspective for 36 OECD countries during 1973-2018. While she provides new insights on the gender-generational gap in political ideology, her work falls short in understanding the individual labour market role in driving modern gender gaps. Finally, the literature on the role of labour market status in political attitudes 1The role of traditional sexual division in gender gaps in political ideology and conservative attitudes was already established in early studies of the political economy of gender. Lipset (1963) argues that women that conform with traditional gender norms of housewives are more likely to retain the dominant conservative values of the larger culture due to their relative low involvement in progressive and more knowledgeable networks of social communication. Furthermore, other socio-demographics, such as religiosity and low levels of educational attainment can feed the more conservative leaning of home-maker women (Norrander & Wilcox, 2008). 3 does not have a clear gender perspective (Marx, 2014; Wiertz & Rodon, 2021), and thus, are silent on the interplay between gender and labour market status in political ideology. Case-studies are more likely to have individual data on labour market status, which specifically allow for considering the political ideology of homemakers. To the best of my knowledge, there are only two provides few studies, for the case of Italy and Turkey, which point at the uneven gender distribution of paid and unpaid work as an important driver of (traditional) gender gaps in political ideology. Barisione (2014) uses data during 1994 to 2013 and shows that the traditional gender gap and support for Berlusconi’s Forza Italia was mainly driven by women that were not in the paid workforce. Similarly, Ilkkaracan (2019) uses individual data for Turkey. Once the labour status of women as home-makers is accounted in the regression models, women’s support for Erdogan’s AKP is no longer significant, showing intra-gender gaps on the basis of traditional sexual division of labour. 2.2 Pandemic, gender and political ideology Recent political economy literature suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic can influence political attitudes, such as government support and voting intentions, but fails to find a significant role of the pandemic in political ideology. Bol et al. (2021) conducted a web-based survey during the first months of the pandemic and exploit the variation of the lockdown and number of deaths in a sample of European countries. They did not find a significant role of the pandemic in political ideology, however, they use web-based data for only limited data around the first months of the pandemic (March-April 2020). Mazza & Scipioni (2022) combine three different surveys conducted in a sample of European countries to find that women show lower government support than men during the pandemic. Stockemer et al. (2021) find a gender disparity in the agreement on strict government measures to countervail the health effects of the pandemic. Using data for the US and Germany, they find that the percentage of women who prefer stricter measures is approximately one-third higher relative to that of men. Finally, Amat et al. (2020) look at the case of Spain and combine several pieces of experimental evidence to show that the pandemic could induce a strong national bias which coupled with higher demands for techno-authoritarian decision-making. Other related works show little evidence of political ideology consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from web-based surveys conducted during the pandemic, Bol et al. (2021) fail to find a significant effect of the pandemic in political ideology. Likewise, Ares et al. (2021) use data 4 on the early stages of the pandemic and fail to associate it to a left nor right-wing shift, but indicate increasing polarization around redistributive politics. The gendered uneven economic impacts of the pandemic sharpened pre-pandemic gender gaps in the labour market and the distribution of unpaid care work (Alon et al., 2020). Gendered uneven economic consequences of the pandemic can lead to gender differences in political ideology in the aftermath of the crisis. In this paper, I argue that taking an intersectional perspective into the politico-ideological consequences of the pandemic can provide a better understanding of the workings of economic crises in forming political attitudes. Specially, I consider a gender-generational gap perspective to estimate the role of the pandemic in the formation of political ideology. The pandemic had gender differential effects in labour market outcomes and unpaid care work, and women and men were exposed differently to health risks. The pre-pandemic sectoral and occupational gender segregation placed women at the forefront of the pandemic, as they were the primary health and care providers in the paid workforce (Kabeer et al., 2021; Nieves et al., 2021; Hern´andez-Alb´ujar et al., 2022). Indeed, the pandemic deteriorated pre-existing gender inequalities in the labour market (Altuzarra et al., 2020; Alon et al., 2020, 2022), which can ultimately mediate an increasing leftist attitude among women. At the household level, women bore the brunt of increasing unpaid domestic and care responsibilities derived from the lockdown and closure of market care services (Adams-Prassl et al., 2020; Sevilla & Smith, 2020; Del Boca et al., 2020). Farr´e et al. (2021) use survey data for Spain to find that the pandemic increased the participation of men in housework and childcare, but most of the burden fell on women. They also find that the pandemic seems to have increased gender inequalities in both paid and unpaid work in the short-term. Hence, the paid and unpaid labour implications of the pandemic in political attitudes can differ between women and men. The present paper considers how the pandemic and gender are interrelated to transforming political ideology. The main hypothesis of the paper is that the uneven gender socio-economic consequences of the pandemic could lead to differential effects of the pandemic in political ideology of women and men. 5 3 Empirical Analysis 3.1 Data and descriptive statistics I collect data from the Spanish Center of Sociological Research (CIS) Barometer to construct a database with pooled independent cross-sections of individuals with monthly frequency between April 2008 to July 2021. I merge this database with information on the monthly incidence of COVID-19 virus collected from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Thus, I measure the incidence of the pandemic either in terms of mortality, using the weekly 14-day notification rate of reported deaths per 1,000,000 population attributed to the virus at national level, or the weekly 14-day notification rate of reported cases at regional level. I compute the monthly rate to be able to merge with the CIS Barometer survey data.2 The descriptive and regression analyses here provided are based on the information of roughly more than 600,000 individuals. The key outcome variable of the analysis is left-right selfplacement, that proxies political ideology using a Likert-type scale from 1 (extreme left) to 10 (extreme right) (Likert, 1932). The survey includes the following question ”When talking about politics, the expressions ”left” and ”right” are commonly used. In a 1 to 10 scale, where do you place yourself politically?.” Political scientist have long measured political ideology on the basis of a Likert-type scale in which categories are ordered to provide a position in the political ideological spectrum.3Although the left-right scale is subject to adjust over time (De Vries et al., 2013), its feasibility in Western countries is generally justified by the high levels of partisan left–right knowledge among the electorate (Inglehart & Klingemann, 1976; Fortunato et al., 2016; Wiertz & Rodon, 2021). Figure 1 shows the evolution of average political ideology of women and men (Panel A) and the gender gap in political ideology (Panel B) during the period at scrutiny. There is an overall trend towards more leftist positions, and over the most part of the period, women placed at the right of 2The data provided by the ECDC is on a weekly basis. To be able to merge this data with the survey information, I compute the monthly rates of COVID-19 deaths and cases at the corresponding national or regional levels. 3Alternative measures of political ideology use other scales that differ in two main aspects: whether the scale is divided into a small or large number of answer categories or whether there is a midpoint in the categories. Using data for Germany, Kroh (2007) shows that these choices are not trivial, and suggests the use of 11-point scales. See Bauer et al. (2017) for a greater discussion on the validity of the Left-Right scale for measuring political ideology. 6 on women. Columns 1 and 2 use men in the sample, whereas Columns 3 and 4 use women, and include the incidence of the pandemic, and later the interactions between the incidence of the pandemic and labour market status. Triple interactions, such as the interaction among gender, labour market status and the incidence of the pandemic can be difficult to interpret. Using instead partitions, in this case based on gender, might help advance our understanding of how the pandemic influence women and men different, and whether labour market status mediates the gender-differential impact of the pandemic. For the male sample, unemployment and student status are significant at 1%, and both are associated with more leftist positions to being employed or retired. however, for women, the significance of this covariate is only at 10%, although with the same sign. Interestingly, homemaker or pensioner status is significant at 1% level for the female sample, and it is associated with a positive sign, meaning that home-maker women are more likely to place at the right of other women. Finally, regarding the incidence of the pandemic, the partitions show that there is a significant role for political ideology of men, but a rather insignificant for women. Nonetheless, the role of labour market status in political ideology is greater in magnitude (around 14% in case of unemployment and 22% in case of students), than that of the pandemic (0.2%). The interactions with labour market status show that there is no interplay between labour market status and the pandemic in political ideology. 13 Table 2: Sample Partitions by Gender Dependent variable: 1-10 left-right self-placement (1) (2) (3) (4) Men Men Women Women Unemployed -0.148∗∗∗ -0.149∗∗∗ -0.030∗-0.031 (0.031) (0.031) (0.017) (0.019) Student -0.218∗∗∗ -0.216∗∗∗ -0.069∗-0.070∗ (0.053) (0.051) (0.038) (0.039) Home-maker/pensioner 0.057 0.043 0.170∗∗∗ 0.169∗∗∗ (0.078) (0.083) (0.019) (0.020) COVID incidence (regional level) 0.022∗∗∗ 0.022∗∗∗ 0.009 0.010∗∗ (0.006) (0.006) (0.005) (0.004) Unemployed*COVID incidence -0.002 -0.003 (0.007) (0.010) Student*COVID incidence 0.005 -0.003 (0.009) (0.014) Home-maker/pensioner*COVID incidence -0.043 -0.002 (0.048) (0.013) No. of Observations 146042 146042 141504 141504 R-sq. 0.151 0.151 0.156 0.156 Note Table 2: Full set of controls include cohabitation, age, age sq., educational attainment, religiosity, marital status, migrant status, working class and voter turnout. Clustered standard errors by region and cohort in parentheses. ∗p<.1, ∗∗ p<.05, ∗∗∗ p<.01 4.2 The Gender-Generational Gap Next, I include the interaction between generation and gender in the augmented model (1) to consider whether women from different generational have significantly different political ideology. While previous models include generation as a control, and thus reduce omitted variables biases in the estimates, they are silent on the fact that gender might impact political ideology different across generational. As the base level for generation I use the Greatest generation, while as in previous models, the labour market status base level is being employed or retired. Figure 4 shows estimates on this model (full model is in Table A3 in Appendix). The 14 coefficient of women is not significant, but the interaction between gender and generations, and that of gender and labour market status are significant in specific values of these variables. Concretely, women from the Z generation are particularly more leftist than the others. Once I consider the role of generational replacement, labour market status, and more specifically, home-maker status becomes not significant. One interpretation of the results is that generational replacement is at the core of the evolution of gender gaps in political ideology, as already stated in Shorrocks (2018) and Dassonneville (2020). However, the results in this paper shed new light on the relevance that generational replacement might play in coming years in Spain, and speak directly to the increasing role of gender cleavages in politics. While Dassonneville (2020) argues that gender will not become a real cleavage in politics in Western countries, the results here suggest otherwise. Women of the Z generation are significantly associated with more leftist ideals, whereas both Y and Z generations are associated with more rightist positions. This divergent trends in political ideology on the basis of gender in younger generations might be exacerbated by modern sexist ideals, which might be more appealing for men Anduiza & Rico (2022) and feminist movements Caravantes (2021). In this sense, my results support the Figure 4: Gender-Generational Gap and LMS in Political Ideology 15 4.3 The Gender-Generation Gap in Political Polarization The next step of this paper considers the role of gender, labour market status and the pandemic in driving political polarization. To do so, I compute the probabilities of being leftist, defined as self-placing equal to 3 or lower in the Left-Right scale, being moderate, defined as selfplacing 4, 5 or 6 , or being rightist, defined as self-place equal to 7 or higher. Figure 5 shows probit model estimates on the three different probabilities, namely being leftist, moderate or rightist. full results are relegated at Table A4 in Appendix. Women are not significantly associated with being leftist or moderate, but positively and significantly associated with being rightist. Nonetheless, the interactions with labour market status and generations provide further information on how gender is associated with the three types of political ideology. Being home-maker or pensioner alters the association of women to the different political ideologies. Women home-makers are more negatively associated with being leftist and positively associated with being moderate. To the contrary, home-maker or pensioner women are not significantly associated with being rightist (neither positively nor negatively). Therefore, these models allow us to identify better how home-maker status shapes political ideology, by reducing the probability of being leftist and increasing moderate ideals. As of the role of generation and its interaction with gender, two important results from these three probit models emerge. First, for the 3 youngest generations (X, y and Z) are significantly less likely to being leftist and more likely to be rightist (with no significant effect in being moderate). However, gender plays a crucial role in altering the probabilities of being leftist and rights for women: women from younger generations are more likely to be leftist and less likely to be rightist, with no significant role in being moderate. Importantly, the young the generation, the higher the magnitude of these associations. 16 Figure 5: Gender-Generational Gap in Political Polarization: Left, Moderate and Right 4.4 The Gender-Generational Gap and the Pandemic Finally, the role of the pandemic in driving the probability of self-place in the left, moderate or right positions is represented in Figure 6, respectively for the case of being leftist (left side) and being moderate (right side). As shown in Table A4 in the Appendix, the pandemic has no significant association with the probability of being rightist. Similar to the models of using the Left-Right scale, the probit models using alternatively the probability of being left or being moderate, suggest that the pandemic is significantly associated with political ideology. While higher incidence of the pandemic is associated with less probability of being leftist for men, for women, this effect is marginal. In the case of being moderate, one standard deviation increase in the incidence of the pandemic is associated with an increasing probability of being moderate for men. For women, however, the pandemic is associated with slightly reducing probability of being moderate. 17 Figure 6: Gender and Pandemic in Political Polarization (Left and Moderate, Probit models) 5 Conclusion Gender gaps in political ideology have long been considered in the literature. The pioneering works of Inglehart et al. (2003) path the ground for empirical cross-country analyses that helped identify factors behind gender differences in the formation of political ideology. The role of generations, as women from different generations were at different exposures to progressive ideas and performed different roles in the labour market, is deemed to be crucial in our understanding of future trends of gender disparities in political ideology. Parallel to these analyses, the role of labour market status (Wiertz & Rodon, 2021) as well as the pandemic (Bol et al., 2021; Mazza & Scipioni, 2022; Stockemer et al., 2021) have been found to be related to political ideology or attitudes. On top of these, there are conflicting arguments in the literature regarding the relevance of gender as a political cleavage in the coming future (Dassonneville, 2020; Gethin et al., 2022). Drawing on these previous accounts, the current paper aimed at providing new evidence on the interplay between labour market status and the pandemic in altering political ideology of women and men differently. Importantly, the paper provides some insights of the extent to which gender will play a role in Spanish politics in the near future. 18 The paper constructs a database with monthly frequency during April 2008 to July 2021 on more than 600,000 individuals, combining information on survey data from the Spanish CIS Barometer and the ECDC for official records of the pandemic, at either national or regional levels. Further, the extensive information of the CIS Barometer allows us to delve into the role of labour market status and generation in shaping political ideology. The results suggest that home-maker status is important to understand the conversion into a modern gender gap in Spain in October 2018. The results generally associate women from the Z-Generation with a tendency towards leftist ideals, whereas the results identify the opposite trend for Z-Generation men. Thus, one of the main results of the econometric analysis here is that generational replacement can contribute to fuelling gender as a real political cleavage in Spain. The results here contribute directly to the works of Dassonneville (2020), Gethin et al. (2022) and Wiertz & Rodon (2021). Wiertz & Rodon (2021) find that unemployment increases the probability of leaning left, and fail to associate people that are not in the labour force with a significant role in political ideology. Separately, Wiertz & Rodon (2021) find evidence that women are also more likely to lean left. However, the interaction between gender and labour market status remains largely unexplored in previous research. In this paper, I provide first evidence that labour market status impacts the political ideology of women and men differently. By her part, Dassonneville (2020) analyses how generational replacement might impact on gender gaps in political ideology. While she interacts gender with time dummies for decades, she does not consider the joint effect of gender and labour market and gender and generation. In this paper, I specified models that allow us to discern the extent which factor, among generational replacement and labour market status, is a better predictor for gender gaps in political ideology. Finally, the results here support the argument in Gethin et al. (2022) that gender is a real cleavage in Western countries’ politics. The results regarding the role of the pandemic go in line with recent literature on the political behavioural consequences of the pandemic and gender differences it them (Mazza & Scipioni, 2022). For the interpretation of these results, I draw on the Jost’s theory that suggest that economic downturns and crisis posit an existential threat that has psychological effects that promote more conservative ideals. At the same time, the experience of discrimination promotes more leftist ideals, and parties n the left usually propose pro-redistributive and pro-poor policies that correct for disparities in the labour market and the society at large. In the case of gender and the pandemic, the pre-existing gender disparities in both the labour market and unpaid production were reinforced 19 in the COVID-19 crisis. The role of women at the forefront of the provisioning of health services, both at paid and unpaid sides, couple with the widening of gender disparities in the labour market and gender unbalanced distribution of care responsibilities. Thus, the pro-conservative effect of the existential threat inherent in the pandemic, which is demonstrated for men, could be countervailed and eventually dominated by a pro-progressive effect of the experience of discrimination in the labour market and unequal gender distribution of home production in the case of women. It is relevant in this context how gender politics and feminist ideals were embraced by the left to understand the turn of political ideology of women, and specifically, women employed in the labour market (Barisione, 2014; Ilkkaracan, 2019). Thus, the ultimate effect of the pandemic in political ideology differ by gender, as women and men experienced different existential threats and (paid and unpaid) work experiences. The findings provided here are particularly interesting to understand the evolution of gender disparities in political ideology in Spain in the post-pandemic era. The perpetuation of gender disparities in the distribution of household production, and at the same time, gender inequalities and discrimination in the workplace, can further the gender cleavage in political ideology. The paper has breathed new life in the gender-generational gap, which could be an important feature in the Spanish party politics, as feminist populist parties and far-right parties might compete for gaining support from younger voters. This paper could be expanded in two main ways. First, using additional data on the role of motherhood and penalties in the labour market can allow for intra-gender considerations in political ideology divides. Second, a cross-country comparison using other Western countries can provide further leverage of the gender and pandemic linkages with political ideology. Acknowledgments I am thankful for comments and suggestions to Lucio Baccaro and Jakob Kapeller. 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Context and political knowledge: Ex22 Figure A3: Distribution of Labour Market Status by Gender Table A2: Gender-Generational Gap and the Pandemic in Political Ideology Dependent variable: 1-10 left-right self-placement (1) (2) Women -0.189∗∗∗ -0.185∗∗∗ (0.018) (0.017) Unemployed -0.130∗∗∗ -0.129∗∗∗ (0.032) (0.032) Student -0.121∗∗ -0.121∗∗ (0.046) (0.046) Home-maker/pensioner 0.051 0.051 (0.078) (0.078) Women*Unemployed 0.083∗∗∗ 0.081∗∗∗ (0.031) (0.030) Women*Student -0.057 -0.058 (0.038) (0.038) Women*Home-maker 0.181∗∗ 0.179∗∗ (0.079) (0.079) National-level COVID-19 deaths 0.015∗∗∗ 0.020∗∗∗ (0.005) (0.005) Women*National-level COVID-19 deaths -0.009∗∗ (0.004) Region, and time FE yes yes Full set of controls yes yes Generation FE yes yes No. of Observations 287546 287546 R-sq. 0.152 0.152 Note Table A2: Full set of controls include cohabitation, age, age sq., educational attainment, religiosity, marital status, migrant status, working class and voter turnout. Variable to measure the pandemic incidence is national total number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 virus. Clustered standard errors by region and cohort in parentheses. 29 Table A3: Gender-Generational Gap and the Pandemic in Political Ideology (1) Dep. variable: Left-Right scale Women -0.122 (0.118) Silent 0.289∗∗ (0.122) Boomer 0.052 (0.128) X Gen 0.259∗ (0.132) Y Gen 0.321∗∗ (0.137) Z Gen 0.444∗∗∗ (0.147) Women*Silent 0.083 (0.123) Women*Boomer 0.000 (0.120) Women*X Gen -0.109 (0.118) Women*Y Gen -0.217∗ (0.118) Women*Z Gen -0.355∗∗∗ (0.126) Women*Unemployed 0.129∗∗∗ (0.024) Women*Student 0.128∗∗∗ (0.036) Women*HM/pensioner 0.127 (0.077) Unemployed -0.152∗∗∗ (0.030) Student -0.208∗∗∗ (0.051) Home-maker/pensioner 0.059 (0.078) COVID-19 0.022∗∗∗ (0.004) Women*COVID-19 -0.014∗∗∗ (0.004) No. of Observations 287546 R-sq. 0.153 Note Table A3: Full set of controls include cohabitation, age, age sq., educational attainment, religiosity, marital status, migrant status, working class and voter turnout. Clustered standard errors by region and cohort in parentheses. 30 Table A4: Gender-Generational Gaps in Political Polarization - Probit Models (1) (2) (3) Dep. variable: Prob. of being Leftist Moderate Rightist Women -0.109 -0.110∗0.125∗∗ (0.074) (0.059) (0.052) Silent -0.207∗∗∗ 0.012 0.152∗∗∗ (0.072) (0.044) (0.058) Boomer -0.078 -0.008 0.070 (0.070) (0.054) (0.069) X Gen -0.223∗∗∗ -0.022 0.201∗∗∗ (0.073) (0.062) (0.075) Y Gen -0.238∗∗∗ -0.017 0.213∗∗∗ (0.083) (0.060) (0.075) Z Gen -0.251∗∗∗ -0.010 0.229∗∗∗ (0.087) (0.066) (0.080) Unemployed 0.084∗∗∗ -0.057∗∗∗ -0.004 (0.021) (0.012) (0.017) Student 0.163∗∗∗ 0.047 -0.188∗∗∗ (0.042) (0.039) (0.027) Home-maker/pensioner -0.020 -0.136∗∗∗ 0.171∗∗∗ (0.049) (0.036) (0.040) Women*Unemployed -0.110∗∗∗ 0.043∗∗∗ 0.041∗∗ (0.016) (0.016) (0.017) Women*Student -0.066∗∗ 0.031 0.026 (0.032) (0.025) (0.027) Women*HM/pensioner -0.117∗∗ 0.084∗∗ -0.043 (0.051) (0.038) (0.042) Women*Silent 0.066 -0.020 0.004 (0.077) (0.056) (0.051) Women*Boomer 0.127∗0.035 -0.042 (0.076) (0.058) (0.051) Women*X Gen 0.189∗∗∗ 0.032 -0.104∗∗ (0.072) (0.059) (0.051) Women*Y Gen 0.232∗∗∗ 0.021 -0.139∗∗ (0.077) (0.060) (0.055) Women*Z Gen 0.336∗∗∗ -0.070 -0.144∗∗ (0.080) (0.069) (0.059) COVID-19 cases (regional level) -0.019∗∗∗ 0.009∗∗∗ 0.003 (0.002) (0.002) (0.003) Women*COVID-19 0.017∗∗∗ -0.013∗∗∗ 0.001 No. of Observations 356500 356500 356500 Pseudo R-sq 0.1099 0.0225 0.0738 Note Table A4: Full set of controls include cohabitation, age, age sq., educational attainment, religiosity, marital status, migrant status, working class and voter turnout. Clustered standard errors by region and cohort in parentheses. 31 Institute for Socio-Economics University of Duisburg-Essen Lotharstr. 65 47057 Duisburg Germany uni-due.de/soziooekonomie [email protected] ifso working paper ifso working papers are preliminary scholarly papers emerging from research at and around the Institute for Socio-Economics at the University of Duisburg-Essen. All ifso working papers at uni-due.de/soziooekonomie/wp ISSN 2699-7207 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License