EUI - Please mind the gender gap: A study of the women and men’s different attitudes toward green ideology

Previse research has found that women tend to be more environmentally oriented and worry more about climate change compared to men. Women are also engaging more in eco and climate-friendly behaviour and have a smaller carbon footprint. Additionally, political scientists find that women are overrepresented among voters for the green parties. In my work, I try to discover why there is a Green Gender Gap and why men are not adopting green ideology at the same rate as women. So far, I have found that social, economical background and political left-right ideology cannot explain the gap between women and men. However, I believe insights from gender research and masculinity studies can be utilised to seek the undiscovered mechanisms behind The Green Gender Gap.

Gender affects many aspects of political life. One aspect of the gender gap that has yet to be systematically investigated is whether women and men have a different position toward green ideology and parties. In my master thesis, I found that environmental and climate issues are one of the areas where Norwegian women and men are disagreeing the most. Norwegian women are more supportive of a green ideology than men and are also more inclined to consider environmental and climate issues as the most important issue for them. I am wondering if this phenomenon restricted to the Norwegian political context or might it be found in other countries as well? . I have formulated three research questions that will create the core of three separate studies. 1) In which countries can we observe a green gender gap? 2) Can the green gap contribute in explaining the “modern gender gap” in voting and 3) why might women and men have different positions on environmental and climate issues?