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Young women are more likely to identify as liberal-leaning now than at any other point over the last two decades, while young men have begun to stray in the other direction, marking the largest gender gap in almost 25 years.
About 44% of women ages 18-29 identified as liberal in 2021 compared to just 25% of men, according to Gallup poll data. Those numbers show a sharp increase for women over the last four years. Only 35% of women identified as liberal-leaning in 2018.
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Young men have remained somewhat steady over the last few years, experiencing a gradual decline in the number of men who identified as liberal from 2016 to 2019, according to the data. However, that number experienced a spike in 2020 when about 27% identified as liberal-leaning, falling again to 25% in 2021.
The 19-point difference between men and women who identify as liberal is the largest polling gap the survey has found since it began tracking the issue in 1998, according to the data.
Liberalism among young women has exploded in recent decades, increasing from 29% of women in the late 1990s identifying as liberal to almost 40% by the beginning of 2017.
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Several issues may have influenced this gap, including the #MeToo movement and the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Other issues may include more women going to college because those who are college-educated are more likely to identify as liberal and a decrease in the number of young women who are married.
However, some experts believe this trend will only increase further with recent changes in abortion policy after the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade earlier this summer, ending nationwide access to the procedure. Women are more likely to view abortion to be a critical issue, with 61% of young women considering it to be a top concern compared to just 36% of all voters, according to the Survey Center on American Life.
