UNTWIST briefing 03: Representing Voters' Needs: A Guide On Gender And Public Opinion Data

This document presents the third policy briefing of the UNTWIST project.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Across Europe, right wing populist actors are mobilising anti-gender equality agendas that threaten the fundamental values of democratic society. In order for other political parties to develop well-informed policies that foster gender equality and counter right-wing populist narratives, they need reliable empirical data on voters’ gender-based needs and demands. This brief highlights the importance of securing valid and reliable public opinion data to understand the full spectrum of citizen’s gender-based needs and demands. We conducted large-scale empirical analysis of survey questions relating to sex/gender in well-established public opinion instruments across 20 years in Europe. We expose important gaps in how public opinion surveys currently measure voters’ gender-based needs and outline the implications.

Key findings:
● Public opinion data regarding gender-based needs predominantly focus on the areas of discrimination, family, and the labour market.
● Measurement is much weaker in important policy areas such as education, healthcare, law and order, and transnational issues including immigration.
● Measurement on certain gender-based needs is not regularly captured over time and may be out of date.
● Many public opinion instruments do not include a measure of party affiliation/vote choice, meaning we cannot learn about the gender-based attitudes of different groups of voters.
● Sample sizes of voters of populist radical right parties are often too low to provide reliable generalisation to the wider voting population.