According to conventional wisdom, how conservative or liberal someone is would largely be determined by their age.
However, as Statista’s Katharina Buchholz details below, while this used to be the case, a major shift has taken place in the United States and elsewhere.
As of 2023, gender is a better indicator of U.S. political leanings – as seen in data collected by Gallup.
As of last year, 18 to 29-year-old men as well as women over the age of 65 in the U.S. were equally likely to describe themselves as liberal or very liberal.
A quarter in each group did so.
This is a far cry from the gap of around 10 percentage points that existed between the two groups in the late 1990s – when Gallup’s data begins – as well as in the early 2010s.
Back then, both young men and women were the leading liberals of the country, while older generations were less likely to label themselves as politically liberal.
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The trend of liberalism took off among women, especially young and middle-aged women, in 2013, when Femen activists and HBO drama Girls were the feminist rage of the day.
The election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016 and accompanying women’s marches as well as the #MeToo movement in 2017 seem to have fueled liberalism in these age groups initially.
However, liberal sentiment among females actually peaked in the 30-49 demographic in 2018.