Measuring and predicting the radical-right gender gap

Studies of support for radical-right populist (RRP) parties find the parties generally receive more support from men than women. This note re-examines the persistent RRP gender gap and explains variation in the gap with country and party-level characteristics. It provides two measures of the gap at the party/country level, and offers hypotheses about where it may be higher or lower. These are tested with over 200 observations of support for 32 European RRP parties from surveys conducted between 2001 and 2019. The gender gap is expected to be lower where there is less gender equality as this may correspond with a reduced likelihood of men perceiving a gender threat. The gap is found to be lower in Western European countries with less gender equality, in countries where a larger proportion of the population are Catholic, and the gap is lower for larger RRP parties. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2022.2034091 .