Gen Politica[1]

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THE GENDER GAP AND POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE: MEN AND WOMEN

IN NATIONAL AND STATE POLITICS

James C. GarandEmogine Pliner Distinguished Professor

Department of Political ScienceLouisiana State University

Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-5433Office: (225) 578-2548Email:[email protected]

Emily GuynanM.A. Candidate


Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-5433Email: [email protected]

Monique FournetB.A. Candidate


Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-5433Email: [email protected]

Paper presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, NewOrleans, Louisiana, January 8-10, 2005.


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THE GENDER GAP AND POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE: MEN AND WOMEN

IN NATIONAL AND STATE POLITICS

Abstract

Previous research has found that men have higher levels of political knowledge than women,both in general and after the effects of various control variables are taken into account. In this paperwe explore the contours and determinants of this gender gap in political knowledge. Using datafrom the 2000 American National Election Study (ANES) and the 2002 Louisiana Survey, wedevelop a series of models in which we depict political knowledge as a function of gender,socioeconomic and demographic attributes, political attitudes and engagement, media exposure, andpolitical life circumstances. We find that gender effects in political knowledge persist, even in theface of statistical controls. Men and women differ on their mean values for a number of controlvariables, so the inclusion of a wide range of independent variables does result in a moderatereduction in the magnitude of gender coefficients. We also find that the gender gap appears to besomewhat stronger for national-level political knowledge rather than state-level politicalknowledge. Moreover, we consider the possibility that men and women differ in their relative

propensities to give incorrect and dont know responses to knowledge questions, and our resultsfrom bivariate and multivariate analyses suggest that women are more likely to give both incorrectand dont know responses. Finally, we test a stereotype threat model of gender differences inpolitical knowledge, and our results from these models are somewhat inconclusive. Overall, ourfindings suggest that gender matters for political knowledge, with women exhibiting consistentlylower levels of political knowledge across a wide range of model specifications. The persistence ofgender differences is somewhat perplexing, insofar as we account for several explanations for whymen have higher levels of political knowledge then women


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The study of political knowledge has drawn considerable scholarly attention in recent years.Scholars have described levels of political knowledge in the American public, generally finding thatAmerican citizens have, on average, relatively low levels of knowledge about politics (Bennett,1989; Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996). Other researchers have focused attention on themeasurement of political knowledge, debating the types of items to be included in scales of politicalknowledge as well as how to interpret incorrect answers and nonresponses (Luskin, 1987; Delli

Carpini and Keeter, 1993; Nadeau and Niemi, 1995; Mondak, 1999, 2001; Mondak and Creel,2001). Still other scholars have developed models to explain individuals levels of politicalknowledge (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996; Mondak, 1999; Lambert, Curtis, Kay, and Brown,1988; Davis and Silver, 2003; Gidengil, Goodyear-Grant, Nevitte, Blais, and Nadeau, 2003).Finally, there is a debate among scholars concerning the implications of low levels of politicalknowledge in the mass public on the workings of democratic political systems (Lupia andMcCubbins, 1998; Popkin, 1991; Bartels, 1996; Garand and Lichtl, 2000).

One of the most interesting findings in this body of research is that there is considerable gendergap in political knowledge. Simply, scholars have found that men are much more knowledgeableabout politics than women (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996; Kenski and Jamieson, 2001; Kenski andJamieson, 2001; Verba, Burns, and Schlozman, 1997; Mondak, 1999; Gidengil et al., 2003). For

instance, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996) develop a full model of political knowledge, using datafrom both the 1988 American National Election Study (ANES) and a survey conducted in Virginiain 1989; they find that the coefficient for gender is negative and significant, even controlling for theeffects of other variables that are related to political knowledge. Mondak (1999) also finds anegative coefficient for gender in his multivariate model of political knowledge in the 1992 ANES;more specifically, he finds that women are more likely then men to respond both incorrectly andwith a dont know response to knowledge questions. Moreover, Davis and Silver (2003) find thatmen have significantly higher levels of political knowledge.

The finding of a gender gap in political knowledge also extends both cross-nationally andthrough the life span. In a study of political knowledge and political engagement across 19 nations,Claibourne and Sapiro find that women have significantly lower levels of political knowledge in all

nations, controlling for basic demographic variables. Moreover, using data from the 2000 CanadianElection Study, Gidengil et al. (2003) find strong and consistent gender differences in politicalknowledge. Finally, the gender gap in political knowledge extends to pre-adults and adolescents(Hess and Torney, 1967; Jennings and Niemi, 1981; Niemi and Junn, 1999).

The observation of gender differences in political knowledge is somewhat perplexing. Womenand men have similar IQ levels, so observed differences in political knowledge for men and womencannot be due to differences in intelligence (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996: 195). Academicpreparation also would not appear to be a good candidate for explaining gender differences inpolitical knowledge, particular since girls and women perform better in school than do boys andmen; for instance, Bowen and Bok (1998) find that female students in their College and BeyondStudy are more likely to graduate and have a higher class rank than similarly-situated male students,

and Vars and Bowen (1998) use the same data set to find a significant positive effect of femalegender on cumulative grade point average.

Since intellectual ability and academic preparation can be eliminated as possible explanations,scholars are forced to consider other possible alternatives. Some observers note that women andmen differ in terms of important demographic characteristics (e.g., education), and that thesedifferences matter for levels of political knowledge. Others contend that women have politicalpredispositions and attitudes that discourage political participation; for instance, Verba, Burns, andSchlozman (1997) note that women exhibit systematically lower levels of political engagement (i.e.,


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political efficacy, information about and interest in politics), and these characteristics mightdiscourage the acquisition of political information by women relative to that of men. Someresearchers also suggest that the life circumstances of women differ from those of men, particularlyin terms of the relative responsibility for raising children and juggling family and workresponsibilities (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996; Verba et al., 1997). These disproportionateresponsibilities are thought to have a disengagement effect that disadvantages women in terms of

their political knowledge relative to that of men.

In this paper we build on previous research to explore the contours and determinants of thegender gap in political knowledge. We begin by describing general patterns of political knowledgefor men and women using data from the 2000 American National Election Study (ANES) and the2002 Louisiana Survey. Second, we develop and test a general model of political knowledge,focusing on how the magnitude of gender effects decreases as one controls for the effects ofindependent variables that differentiate men and women and that are thought to account for theeffects of gender on political knowledge. Third, we consider the possibility that men and womendiffer in their relative propensities to give incorrect and dont know responses. Rather than usegeneral knowledge scales that do not differentiate between incorrect and dont know responses,we estimate a series of multinomial logit models of political knowledge using specific knowledge

items recoded to include correct, incorrect, and dont know responses. Finally, we test astereotype threat model of gender differences in political knowledge, suggesting that genderdifferences in political knowledge may be at least partially explained by gender-of-intervieweffects.

PREVIOUS RESEARCH

The study of gender differences in political knowledge has drawn some specific attention in thescholarly literature. While scholars have examined the gender gap in political knowledge, there isstill no satisfactory answer as to why men know more about politics than women. Even when onecontrols for variables representing the various explanations, the gender gap in political knowledge

remains intact, albeit somewhat diminished.

Differences in Propensities to Hazard a Guess

One of the most intriguing ideas about why men know more about politics than women relatesto hypothesized differences in how men and women respond to survey questions. Gidengil et al(2003: 1) raise questions about the assumption that the sex difference in opinion expressionreflects womens socialized reticence about politics. Gidengil et al. argue that perhaps theappropriate question is not Why do women not know as much as men?, but rather Why are menso willing to express opinions? By taking male behavior as the norm, womens behavior isautomatically viewed as deviant. Gidengil et al. argue that what should be examined is the qualityof the opinions given, suggesting that women may be more likely to answer dont know to survey

questions, but when women do give answers they are more likely to be correct and their opinionsare more likely to be well informed. They go on to argue that men may be masking a lack ofpolitical opinions by being so willing to express opinion while women, though more likely toanswer dont know, do not feel pressure to answer unless they are ready to express well informedopinions.

Mondak (1999, 2001) reinforces this view in his research on political knowledge. He examineshow political knowledge is measured and suggests that incorrect and dont know answers shouldnot be grouped together because they imply very different processes. Individuals can be informed,


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misinformed, uninformed, and partially informed. A dont know reply by a respondent can alsoindicate that the respondent has a low confidence level. For these reasons Mondak suggests thatincorrect and dont know responses should not be combined. Partially informed and misinformedindividuals are getting information, although it is incomplete in some cases and misinterpreted inothers, while uninformed individuals are not obtaining or retaining any information at all. Thesedifferences in degree are important, and valuable information on individuals levels of political

knowledge is lost when uninformed individuals are lumped together along with individuals whomight know the answer but for whatever reason are not confident enough to respond positively.

The idea that knowledge scales might tap into something other than knowledge is alsoimportant to realize (Mondak, 1999: 61). Confidence levels, propensity to take risks, and socialdesirability can all influence whether individuals will respond to knowledge questions. They areparticularly significant when comparing the political knowledge of the sexes. Men are usually moreconfident in expressing their opinions, particularly on political matters that have been traditionallyassigned to them as their domain, while women might be more hesitant to voice their opinion.Although, Mondak is argues that incorrect answers and dont know answers should not becollapsed, it is not clear how these responses should be handled. One option is to word surveyquestions so as not to give survey respondents the opportunity to provide a dont know response.

Alternatively, one can include all responses in the dependent variable and treat them as ordered ordiscrete alternatives (Mondak, 1999: 80). The questions of how to measure knowledge and therealization that these measures can measure attributes other than political knowledge is important torealize because of the potential affects they can have on empirical results.

Possible Interviewer Effects

Another factor that affects how willing men and women are to provide answers to knowledgequestions is the gender of interviewer effect. The gender of the interviewer of a survey may seemlike an insignificant variable to consider, particularly in telephone surveys where the respondentdoes not directly interact with the interviewer in person; however, interviewer gender can haveimportant effects on survey response, especially to political knowledge questions. Banducci (2003)

examines this effect and hypothesizes that men may be more likely to overestimate interest inpolitics and political knowledge when interviewed by a woman, while women may be more likelyto do so with male interviewers. She also argues that, because there are generally more female thanmale interviewers, differences based on gender-of-interviewer effects may be greatly exaggerated.

Banducci presents two explanations for why the gender of the interviewer matters: (1) socialdesirability--i.e., the need to conform to desirable behavior and attitudinal expectations; and (2)disconfirming negative stereotypes--i.e., the need to disconfirm negative stereotypes that individualsexpect the interview to hold (Banducci, 2003: 3). Social desirability could explain why men are sowilling to offer responses to survey questions. The general argument is that politics is perceived tobe a mans world, and so men perceive that it is their duty to know about politics and offerresponses to political questions, even if they do not know anything about the issue or are poorly

informed. This would especially be the case when the interviewer is a woman, as men would feelthe need to live up to societys expectations. Women, on the other hand, might be expected toengage in disconfirming negative stereotypes about themselves. Because politics is perceived as amans world, women may overestimate their interest and/or knowledge in order to show thatwomen too can follow, understand, and participate intellectually in politics. This would happen witha male interviewer because women might be afraid to display ignorance to a male interviewer.

Banducci (2003: 5) suggests considering surveys as gendered conversations, contending thatmen will tend to answer survey questions in a way that assures their status and power while


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women in trying to reach consensus will avoid conflict or answers that are threatening to theinterviewer. She finds that there are consistent gender differences in engagement, but only forcertain types of questions, such as those involving political interest and newspaper readership.Ultimately, she finds that both men and women show conforming behavior with male interviewers.She finds only one case where men exhibit conforming behavior with a female interviewer. Insteadshe found that male interviewers elicited more conforming behavior with both men and women, and

this results in an overestimate of political knowledge levels.

Campaign Context and Ease of Information Acquisition

Kenski and Jamieson (2001) examine the gender gap in political knowledge in relation to the2000 presidential election campaign. They hypothesize that gender will be a significant predictorof political knowledge with females knowing less political information about the presidentialcandidates than male counterparts (2001: 2). Political campaigns are important sources ofinformation, but the authors suggest that this information is not beneficial to all. More highlyeducated individuals will have easier access to campaign information and they will have the abilityto process more complicated and in-depth information than less-educated individuals. As a result,even a highly informative campaign can increase the knowledge gap between highly educated and

less educated individuals.

Kenski and Jamieson find that as the 2000 election campaign progressed the gap betweenhighly educated and less educated individuals increased, while the gap between men and womendecreased. They suggest that as elections draw near women may gain knowledge relative to menbecause more of the information that they see as relevant is presented later in the campaign, whileearlier in the campaign other less relevant information is presented. Kenski and Jamieson concludeby suggesting that women use online processing (i.e., processing information and then forgetting it),while men record information and remember it; moreover, women use more elaborate cognitivemeasures as elections draw near and can hence close the gap in political knowledge more quickly.

Social Capital and Social Interaction

Another important factor that affects political knowledge is social capital. Robert Putnam(2000) in his bookBowling Alone assumes that social capital allows political information to spread(Putnam 2000: 343). Gidengil et al. (2003) examine the connection between gender, knowledge,and social capital. The main question they study is, Do womens associational involvements andinformal social networks bring them into contact with people who like to talk about politics, and ifthey do, does this stimulate greater political discussion on womens part? Social networks areimportant because it is through contact and discourse with others that information is passed along.As such, they are or can be significant sources of political information. Gidengil et al. find that justbelonging to a social group is not enough. The type of association to which one belongs has asignificant impact on the type of information to which members are exposed. They find that menand women belong to different types of social groups and are exposed to different types of

information. Women tend to belong to more homogeneous, community-based groups, while mentend to belong to more heterogeneous, instrumental groups. This difference is important becausewomen are less exposed to individuals with different views and ideas while men are exposed to adiverse group of people through work and their groups. Community-based groups thus tend toisolate those who belong to the group from the broader world of information while instrumentalgroups help broaden horizons because there are more diverse members.

The idea of information quality over information quantity is confirmed in their finding thatwomen who belonged to four or more groups have barely as much knowledge as men who


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belonged to no groups. Through their work, men are exposed to people in different occupations,with different views, and with different values. This exposure provides the opportunity to learn and,most importantly, discuss political events. The authors come to the conclusion that until womenbecome more involved in job-related, instrumental organizations that provide many opportunitiesfor political discourse, they will have a hard time catching up to men in the area of politicalknowledge.

Interest and Political Engagement

Verba, Burns, and Schlozman (1997) examine the effects of gender on political participationand engagement. They find that women are less politically interested, informed, and efficaciousthan men and this has consequences for political participation (1997: 1051). Because men aremore interested in politics they acquire the resources that are necessary for political participation.Women, on the other hand, do not acquire these resources as readily because of lack of interestand/or lack of opportunity. However, Verba et al. agree with previous authors that the acquisition ofpolitical information seems to be domain specific (1997: 1054). For instance, women may know agreat deal about school politics because that is an area that has been traditionally assigned towomen; arguably, women have a vested interest in school politics because they are the primary

caregivers of their children and school directly affects them and their children.

Resources are factors that greatly determine whether and how much individuals participate inpolitics, as well as how much they know about politics. Resources include education, income, andcivic skills. These resources have been traditionally more available to men than to women;however, Verba et al. find that even these differences do not fully account for the gender gap inparticipation. They find, for instance, that women who live in a state with a female U.S. senatorshowed an increase in political knowledge (1997: 1066). This helps to demonstrate that politicalknowledge is selective. Women become more interested in politics when there are femalepoliticians involved. This supports Kenski and Jamiesons (2001) finding that women become moreinterested in politics when what they perceive as more relevant information is presented.

Verba et al. conclude that, [g]ender differences in political interest and information seem toreflect a genuine difference in the taste for politics (1997: 1070). It may be that men and womenare interested in different things, with men being more interested in politics than women. Theauthors suggest that future study should focus on how these preferences are formed in boys andgirls. Political interest, knowledge, and participation have serious consequences for representation.If one segment of society makes its voice heard through various channels of participation then thatgroup will have a better chance of representation than a group that does not participate.

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In sum, the literature on political knowledge and engagement points to a number of possibleexplanations for the gender gap in political knowledge. Some scholars see gender-based knowledge

differences as at least partly an artifact of methodology, particularly in terms of how surveyinstruments measure political knowledge, as well as how incorrect and dont know responses areto be interpreted. Others see gender differences as real, insofar as they exist and are explainableby differences in individuals characteristics (e.g., political attitudes, demographic attributes,cognitive abilities) or the contexts within which they reside. There appears to be some validity tothese approaches to studying gender differences in political knowledge, though additional researchis needed to disentangle the level of empirical support for these two approaches.


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MODELLING GENDER DIFFERENCES IN POLITICAL KNOWLEDGE

What explains gender differences in political knowledge? Why are men more knowledgeableabout politics than women? In this section we lay out the general contours of a model of politicalknowledge, focusing on the effects of gender as well as on the effects of independent variables thatare related to political knowledge and that possibly differentiate men and women. In particular, we

consider the effects of variables that represent individuals capacity to learn about politics, theirexposure to political information, their general engagement in politics, and characteristics of theirpersonal contexts that promote political information acquisition.

We should note from the outset that we rely on two data sets for our analysis. The first, the2000 American National Election Study survey, is a standard survey conducted before and after the2000 national elections. Most readers will be well aware of the ANES series. On the other hand, the2002 Louisiana Survey will be less familiar to most readers. The Louisiana Survey was conductedin June 2002, with 1103 completed interviews. While the focus of the survey was the spending andtaxation preferences of Louisiana citizens (Garand and Blais, 2003), we also included a wide rangeof items on respondents knowledge of various national and state political figures, as well as data ona variety of independent variables that should be related to political knowledge. The inclusion of

national andstate political knowledge items differentiates the 2002 Louisiana Survey from the 2000ANES and other ANES surveys.

A descriptive summary of the variables used in this study can be found in Appendix 1.

Dependent Variable: Political Knowledge

As a starting point, it is important to discuss our measure of political knowledge, which servesas the dependent variable in each of our models. The measurement of political knowledge hasdrawn considerable attention in the literature (Delli Carpini and Teeter, 1996; Mondak, 1999, 2001).There is a wide range of political knowledge domains, including knowledge of political institutionsand processes, people and players, domestic politics, foreign affairs, national politics, and state and

local politics (Delli Carpini and Teeter, 1996; Niemi and Junn, 1999).

Perhaps the most widely-used domain is what Delli Carpini and Teeter refer to as the peopleand players domain, which involves asking survey respondents if they can identify specificpolitical figures. These questions are a regular feature of the ANES surveys, and knowledge scalesbased on these items have high reliability and validity. Typically, the wording of these questions isas follows:

Now we have a set of questions concerning various public figures. We want to see howmuch information about them gets out to the public from television, newspapers, and the like.To help us do that, Id like to ask you some questions about your knowledge of politics. Mostpeople will not know the answers to many of these; if you dont know, dont worry about it,

just tell me and well move on to the next one. The first is Dick Cheney. Do you happen toknow what job or political office he now holds?

Respondents are typically asked to identify a series of political figures, with three coding optionsavailable: (1) correct answer; (2) incorrect answer; and (3) dont know response. For the purposesof creating general knowledge scales, we recoded the answers to each item so that it is coded as adichotomous variable, with correct answers coded 1, and other responses coded 0. Knowledgescales are created by summing the individual dichotomous variables, and these scales typically havehigh levels of reliability and validity.


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For our data from the 2000 ANES, we base our knowledge scales on six political knowledgeitems. Each of these items involves asking whether or not respondents can correctly identifypolitical figures or information about the presidential candidates: (1) Trent Lott, U.S. Senatemajority leader; (2) William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; (3) Tony Blair,Prime Minister of Great Britain; (4) Janet Reno, Attorney General of the United States; (5) the

home state for George W. Bush (Texas); and (6) the home state for Al Gore (Tennessee). Each ofthese items is coded 1 for correct responses, and 0 otherwise.1 We sum these six items together,creating a knowledge scale ranging from 0 (low knowledge) to 6 (high knowledge). The scale has a

reasonable level of reliability ( = 0.76).

For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, we base our knowledge scale on a somewhat broader set ofquestions, some of which reflect knowledge of national political figures and some of which reflectknowledge of state political figures. National knowledge questions include items in whichrespondents are asked if they can identify the following political figures: (1) Dick Cheney, Vice-President of the United States; (2) William Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; (3)Tom Daschle, U.S. Senate minority leader; and (4) Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the U.S. House ofRepresentatives. The reliability for an additive scale based on these four items is at acceptable levels

( = 0.69). The state knowledge scale is based on items on whether or not respondents can identifythe following state political figures: (1) Mary Landrieu, junior member of the U.S. Senate fromLouisiana; (2) John Breaux, senior U.S. senator from Louisiana; (3) Mike Foster, Governor ofLouisiana; (4) Fox McKeithan, Louisiana Secretary of State; and (5) Charles DeWitt, Speaker of the

Louisiana House of Representatives. A scale based on these five items has borderline reliability (= 0.66). However, a global political knowledge scale based on all nine items has stronger reliability

( = 0.79). We focus our attention on the global political knowledge scale, though parts of ouranalysis are directed at the narrower national and state scales. Moreover, in order to ascertain theeffect of gender on correct, incorrect, and dont know responses, we also estimate separatemodels for each of the specific knowledge items.

Independent Variable: Gender

Obviously, the key independent variable in our analysis is gender, which we measure as adichotomous variable, coded 1 for women and 0 for men. If there is a gender difference in politicalknowledge, we would expect the coefficient for the gender variable to be negative, indicating thatwomen have lowerlevels of political knowledge than men.

One of our key concerns is what happens to the gender coefficient as we include additionalindependent variables to our model that are designed to account for those gender differences. In asimple bivariate model (i.e., without control variables), the coefficient for gender is expected to benegative. The intercept in this model represents the mean level of political knowledge for men (i.e.,when gender = 0), while the coefficient for the gender variable represents the difference in meanlevels of political knowledge for men and women. Of course, the mean level of political knowledge

for women can be obtained by adding the intercept and the b coefficient. However, when one beginsto include theoretically-relevant control variables (e.g., education, strength of partisanship, etc.), thecoefficient for the gender variable should be diminished to the extent that the additionalindependent variables differentiate men and women. If we include independent variables thataccount for the gender gap in political knowledge, the coefficient for gender should be reduced to avalue of 0. Analytically speaking, our task is to model knowledge so that the coefficient for genderapproaches a value of 0 and is rendered nonsignificant. If this outcome occurs, it means that we


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have accounted for the explanations of gender differences in the additional independent variablesincluded in our model.

Independent Variables: Socioeconomic and Demographic Characteristics

The effect of socioeconomic and demographic characteristics on political knowledge has been

well documented in the literature (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996; Gidengil et al., 2003; Mondak,1999). We include several socioeconomic and demographic variables in our models. First, inprevious research most scholars have found that age is positively related to political knowledge,suggesting that older individuals are more knowledgeable about politics than younger citizens.Presumably, learning about politics is a life-long process, and individuals who have experiencedpolitical life and have been exposed to the political world over the course of the life span are morelikely than younger individuals with less political experience and exposure to have accumulatedhigh levels of political knowledge. Given this, we measure respondents age as the chronologicalnumber of years since birth. We hypothesize that the coefficient for age will be positive, indicatingthat older individuals have higher levels of political knowledge.

Second, educational attainment is one of the strongest predictors of political knowledge, with

education effects observed for all types of political information (Delli Carpini and Keeter, 1996).Formal education has an effect on political knowledge in at least three ways. First, educationprovides individuals with direct exposure to information about politics, primarily through courses incivics, history, and other social sciences (Niemi and Junn, 1999). Second, education providesindividuals with learning skills, whereby they are more likely to internalize and organizeinformation about politics in their daily lives. Third, individuals with high levels of education arelikely to begin life with higher levels of cognitive capability, which is translated into a greaterpropensity to learn about the political world. We measure education in both the 2000 ANES and the2002 Louisiana Survey using the same seven-point scale of formal educational attainment, rangingfrom 0 (less than 9th grade completed) to 6 (advanced degree). We hypothesize that education willbe positively (and, we expect, strongly) related to political knowledge.

Third, the effect of income on political knowledge has drawn some scholarly attention.Specifically, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996) find that individuals with high incomes have higherlevels of political knowledge, raising questions about the class-based nature of political informationand the record of political mobilizations institutions targeted toward the working class in the UnitedStates. One might speculate that the self-interest rationale for seeking information would beinvariant across income groups; arguably, those at the lower income levels have as much at stake inlearning about politics as those with high income. However, previous workmost notably, DelliCarpini and Keeter (1996)has called this into question. In order to capture these possible effects,we include a measure of family income in each of our models. This variable is measured in the2000 ANES using a 22-point scale of family income, ranging from 0 (less than $4,999 per year) to21 (greater than $200,000 per year). For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, we utilize an eight-point scaleranging from 0 (under $10,000 per year) to 7 (over $70,000 per year). If family income has the

hypothesized effect on political knowledge that is compatible with previous research, we wouldexpect the coefficient for family income to be positive.

Fourth, we hypothesize that levels of political knowledge will vary as a function of race andethnicity. Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996) and Davis and Silver (2003) find that blacks have lowerlevels of political knowledge than whites; for Delli Carpini and Keeter, this is true even in the faceof statistical controls that might be thought to explain the black-white knowledge gap. We speculatethat a similar pattern will be exhibited for Hispanic respondents, who along with languagedifferences face many of the knowledge constraints faced by black citizens. In both of our data sets


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we create a black respondent variable, coded 1 for black respondents, and 0 otherwise. We alsocreate an Hispanic respondent variable, coded 1 for Hispanic respondents and 0 otherwise. Becauseof the small number of Hispanics in the Louisiana sample, we measure this Hispanic variable onlyfor the 2000 ANES survey. We hypothesize that the coefficients for these two variables will benegative, indicating lower levels of knowledge than similarly situated white respondents.

Finally, we consider the self-interest effect of home ownership on political knowledge. Homeowners have made a substantial investment of resources to purchase their homes, and the are likelyto be acutely aware of anything that affects their investment. They obviously have a special interestin government activity, particularly as it relates to taxes, housing values, interest rates, and thequality of life in their communities. Arguably, this has the incentive for home owners to seek outand retain political information. We measure home ownership as a dichotomous variable, coded 1for home owners and 0 otherwise. We hypothesize that the coefficient for home ownership will bepositive, indicating that home owners have higher levels of political knowledge than otherindividuals.

Independent Variables: Political Attitudes and Engagement

We also consider the possibility that individuals political attitudes and level of politicalengagement are related to political knowledge. In particular, we contend that the intensity anddirection of political attitudes, attentiveness to and interest in politics, and feelings about theresponsiveness and trustworthiness of the political system will all affect individuals level ofpolitical knowledge.

Intensity and direction of political attitudes. First, we suggest that the intensity and direction ofpartisan identification will be related to levels of political knowledge. Simply, we hypothesize thatstrong partisans will be significantly more knowledgeable, since they are likely to hold more intensefeelings about politics and will be more likely to seek out information about politics. We alsoconsider the possibility that there are partisan differences in political knowledge, though thedirection of the coefficient is not clear on theoretical grounds. In order to capture these effects, we

measure partisan identification in both surveys as a seven-point scale, ranging from 0 (strongDemocrat) to 6 (strong Republican). We then create a measure of folded partisanship, denotedstrength of partisanship and measured as a four-point scale ranging from 0 (pure independent) to 3(strong partisan). We hypothesize that strength of partisanship will be positively related to politicalknowledge. The expected direction for the coefficient for the raw partisan identification variable isless clear, though we include it in the model to capture potential partisan direction effects.

Second, another important political attitude is ideological identification. As is the case withpartisanship, we speculate that intensity of ideological identification will be positively related topolitical knowledge. Simply, strong liberals and strong conservatives should have higher levels ofpolitical knowledge than moderates, in large part because of the intensity of viewpoint held bystrong ideologues. We also consider the possibility that there are knowledge differences across

different ideological groups, with liberals possibly being more or less knowledgeable thanconservatives. In both surveys we measure ideological identification using a seven-point scale,ranging from 0 (strong liberal) to 6 (strong conservative). As is the case with partisanship, we createa folded measure of ideology, measured as a four-point scale and ranging from 0 (moderate) to 3(strong ideologue). We speculate that strong ideologues will have higher levels of politicalknowledge than moderates, and hence the coefficient for folded ideology should be positive. As isthe case for partisanship, the directional effect for the raw ideological identification measure is lessclear, though we include it in the model to capture potential directional effects of ideology.


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Political engagement. We suggest that individuals who are engaged in politicsi.e., those whopay attention to and are interested in politicswill be more likely to seek out information anddevelop knowledge about politics. We include several political engagement variables. First, in bothsurveys we use items designed to measure respondents interest in politics. For the 2000 ANES werely on an item asking individuals about how interested they are and how much they pay attentionto political campaigns; this variable is measured as a three-point scale, ranging from 0 (not much

interested) to 2 (very much interested). For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, the focus of the question isslightly different, insofar as we asked respondents about how much attention they pay togovernment and politics. Here again, this variable is measured as a three-point scale, rangingfrom 0 (not much interested) to 2 (very much interested). Moreover, we include two additionalitems in the 2002 Louisiana survey, one asking about how much attention respondents pay tonational news about government affairs and politics, the other asking how much attentionrespondents pay to local news on government affairs and politics in the state of Louisiana. Bothof these items are coded as five-point scales, ranging from 0 (none) to 4 (a great deal). It should benoted that these more specialized items are only included in the models relating to national and statepolitical knowledge. For both data sets, we hypothesize that interest in and attentiveness to politicswill be positively related to political knowledge.

Second, for the analysis of data from the 2000 ANES survey only, we include two additionalpolitical engagement variables as independent variables in our model. We measure the degree towhich individuals follow government and public affairs using a four-point scale, ranging from 0(hardly at all) to 3 (most of the time). We expect the coefficient for this variable to be positive.,indicating that individuals who follow politics will have higher levels of political knowledge thanother individuals. Moreover, we include an item from the 2000 ANES that measures the degree towhich the respondent considers him- or herself more opinionated than others. This variable ismeasured as a five-point scale, ranging from 0 (a lot fewer than average) to 4 (a lot more thanaverage). Here again, we expect this variable to be positively related to political knowledge,controlling for the effects of other variables.2

Attitudes toward government and politics. We also suggest that how citizens view the

government and the American political system will have a strong effect on political knowledge.First, external political efficacy is the degree to which individuals perceive government as beingresponsive to them. We suggest that individuals who exhibit high levels of external efficacy will seea payoff in the acquisition of political knowledge, insofar as they perceive that they can use thatknowledge as currency to influence a political system that pays attention to their preferences. Onthe other hand, individuals who see government as being unresponsive to them will be less likely tosee a positive result from the acquisition of knowledge, and so these individuals will have relativelylow levels of political knowledge. We measure external political efficacy as factor scores obtainedthrough principle components analysis of the following two items: (1) degree of agreement withstatement that "I don't think public officials care much what people like me think;" and (2) degree ofagreement with statement that People like me don't have any say about what the governmentdoes. For the 2000 ANES, the eigenvalue is 1.41, with 70.5% of the variance explained. For the

2002 Louisiana Survey a full range of efficacy items are not available, so we measure efficacybased on responses to the following item: Over the years, how much attention do you feel thatLouisiana government pays to what people think when it decides what to doa good deal, some, ornot much? This variable is coded as a three-point scale, ranging from 0 for low efficacy, and 2 forhigh efficacy. We hypothesize that external political efficacy will be positively related to politicalknowledge.

Second, we consider the effects of political trust on levels of political knowledge. We suggestthat individuals who have trust in the political system will also see a payoff in gaining knowledge


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about politics, while those who distrust government will consider the acquisition of knowledgeabout government an politics a relative waste of time. To measure political trust, we generate factorscores through a principle components analysis of the following four items: (1) the degree to whichrespondents think that government wastes money paid in taxes; (2) whether respondents would saythat government is run by a few big interests; (3) how much of the time respondents would say thatthey can trust the government in Washington to do what is right; and (4) the extent to which

respondents think that the people running the government are crooked. For the 2000 ANES theeigenvalue for this analyisis is 1.93, with 48.4% of the variance explained. For the 2002 LouisianaSurvey, we include in our political trust scale the first, third, and fourth items listed above, with thequestions reconfigured to make Louisiana government and politics the target of the items. Theeigenvalue for the analysis generating the trust factor scores is 1.80, with 60% of the varianceexplained.

Third, there is considerable tension in American society between those who advocate greaterprovision of goods and services by the public sector and those who advocate the allocation of goodsand services through free market mechanisms or based on individual initiative. We suggest thatindividuals who are opposed to government provision of goods and services are likely to be highlymotivated and actively engaged in that opposition, and hence these individuals will have higher

levels of political knowledge than other citizens, controlling for the effects of other variables. Inboth the 2000 ANES and 2002 Louisiana Survey, we use three items that represent a forced choicebetween pro-government and anti-government approaches to solving policy problems. Thequestions used to measure this scale are as follows:

Next, I am going to ask you to choose which of two statements I read comes closer to your own

opinion. You might agree to some extent with both, but we want to know which one is closer to

your views.

One, the less government, the better; or two, there are more things that government should be

doing.

1. The less government the better2. More things government should be doing

One, we need a strong government to handle today's complex economic problems; or two, the

free market can handle these problems without government being involved.

1. Need a strong government to handle complex economic problems

2. Free market can handle without government involvement

One, the main reason government has become bigger over the years is because it has gotten

involved in things that people should do for themselves; or two, government has become

bigger because the problems we face have become bigger.

1. Government is bigger because involved in things people should handle themselves

2. Government has become bigger because problems are bigger

Using these items, we have created a scale, denoted the antigovernment scale, based on a principalcomponents analysis of these three items. For the 2000 ANES, the eigenvalue is equal to 1.98, with66% of the variance explained. For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, the eigenvalue is equal to 1.85, with62% of the variance explained. High values on this scale represents hostility to governmentprovision of goods and services, while a low score represents support for government provision. We


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expect that those who advocate provision of goods and services through the free market or throughindividual initiative will be motivated by their opposition and hence more knowledgeable aboutpolitics; hence, we hypothesize that the coefficient for this variable will be positive.

Fourth, citizens differ in terms of the degree to which they perceive policy differences betweenthe two political parties. Some citizens see the Democrats and Republicans as the proverbial

Tweedledee and Tweedledum, insofar as they perceive the Democrats and Republicans as stakingout similar policy positions. For these citizens, there may be little reason to invest substantial timeand effort in acquiring political knowledge, since the electoral choices confronting them do notmatter very much at all. On the other hand, other individuals perceive substantial differencesbetween the two parties, usually seeing the Democrats as the relatively liberal party and theRepublicans as the relatively conservative party. For these citizens, the stakes in politics aresubstantial, insofar as these policy differences mean that it really matters which party controlsgovernment. In order to measure polarized party placement, it is necessary to have respondentsplacement of the Democratic and Republican parties. These data are available for the 2000 ANES,but not for the 2002 Louisiana Survey. Using data from the 2000 ANES only, we measure polarizedparty placement as the absolute value of the distance between respondents placements of theRepublican and Democratic parties. We expect voters who perceive polarized parties to be more

knowledgeable than voters who perceive the political parties as being similar, so the coefficientfor this variable should be positive.

Independent Variables: Media Exposure

Knowledge about politics does not materialize out of thin air. Rather, individuals must beexposed to the information from family, close friends, or the media. Arguably, one of the mostimportant predictors of political knowledge is exposure to various news media. Individuals who areregularly exposed to the news media are more likely to be exposed to information about politics,which is a prerequisite for developing knowledge about politics. In our analyses of both the 2000ANES and 2002 Louisiana Survey data, we include several media variables as predictors ofpolitical knowledge. These media variables represent different kinds of media, which appear to

differ in the degree to which they effectively transmit information to individuals.

First, we create a variable to represent individuals exposure to national television news. For the2000 ANES, this variable is measured as the number of days in which the respondent watchesnational television news; hence this variable ranges from 0 to 7. For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, weadopt an alternative measurement strategy, relying on individuals responses to the question ofwhether or not they had watched national television news in the past 24 hours. In both cases weexpect the coefficient for this variable to be positive, indicating that those who watch nationaltelevision news on a regular basis will have higher levels of political knowledge.

Second, we consider the effects of local television news on political knowledge. For the 2000ANES, we rely on two items relating to local news viewership. The first deals with how many days

respondents watch early evening local television news, while the second involves how many daysrespondents watch late night local television news. We create a simple additive scale that combinesthe values of these two variables; hence this variable ranges from 0 (i.e., respondent does not everwatch local television news) to 14 (i.e., respondent watches both the early evening and late nightlocal television news every day). For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, we measure this variable as asimple dichotomy, coded 1 for individuals who have watched local television news in the past 24hours, and 0 otherwise. We hypothesize that the coefficient for these variables will be positive.


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Third, newspaper news is generally thought of as a superior form of distributing informationabout politics. For the 2000 ANES we measure this variable as the number of days in whichrespondents read a daily newspaper; this variable ranges from 0 to 7. For the 2002 LouisianaSurvey, we code this variable 1 for respondents who have read a daily newspaper in the past 24hours, and 0 otherwise. Here again, we expect newspaper readers to have higher levels of politicalknowledge than other similarly situated citizens, so the coefficient for this variable is expected to be

positive.

Independent Variables: Personal Life Circumstances

One set of variables that might be related to political knowledge involves personal lifecircumstances. These personal life circumstances are often thought to explain the gap in levels ofpolitical knowledge for men and women. In particular, many observers contend that women havejoint responsibilities for work and family that many men do not have, and the result, so theargument goes, is that women are more likely to be so overburdened by work and family that theydo not have adequate time to acquire detailed information about politics.

We include several personal life circumstances variables in our models. First, for the 2000

ANES survey we consider respondents marital status; this variable is coded 1 for marriedrespondents, and 0 otherwise. We hypothesize that married individuals will have higher levels ofpolitical knowledge, so the coefficient for this variable should be positive.3

Second, we consider the effects of children on political knowledge. As any parent will state,raising children is a time-consuming activity, and this diminishes the amount of time that parentscan spend on learning about politics. For the 2000 ANES, we utilize a measure to capture the effectsof having school-age children; this variable is coded 1 for respondents who report having a childunder the age of 18, and 0 otherwise. We hypothesize that the coefficient for this variable will benegative, indicating that parents of children are expected to have lower levels of politicalknowledge. For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, we use a question designed to ascertain if respondentshave children of school age. We recode this variable as 1 for individuals who have children of

school age, and 0 otherwise. We also are able to determine if respondents have children older than18 years; this variable is coded 1 for respondents with adult children, and 0 otherwise.

Third, we combine information from the gender, marital status, and child variables to create avariable for single motherhood. This variable is coded 1 for single mothersi.e., women who aresingle and have childrenand 0 otherwise. Being a single parent is often very stressful, if for noother reason that single parents usually have sole responsibility for raising their children. Given theburdens of raising children in a single-parent family, we hypothesize that single mothers will havelower levels of political knowledge.4

Fourth, we explore the effects of employment on political knowledge. The direction of theeffect of employment is unclear. On one hand, employment gives individuals exposure to political

information through their interaction with coworkers; hence one would expect employment to havea positive effect on political knowledge, both for men and women. On the other hand, employmentis a time-consuming activity that can make it difficult for individuals to take sufficient time to learnabout politics; hence one might expect that employment and political knowledge will be negativelyrelated. We include in our model an employment variable, coded 1 for employed respondents and 0otherwise. Given the ambiguous expected direction for this coefficient, we test our hypothesis ofemployment effects using a two-tailed test of statistical significance.


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It is also the case that employment does not act in a vacuum. Rather, employment may combinewith gender and parenthood to affect individuals level of political knowledge. By itself,employment may or may not increase or decrease political knowledge. But the combination ofemployment and parenthood might be expected to diminish political knowledge, particular if, asmany commentators believe, women are more likely than men to take on family responsibilities inaddition to their work obligations. Hence, it is possible that the gender gap in political knowledge is

really due to which women are relatively overburdened compared to men; if this is the case, it maybe the case that men have more time and energy to seek out and acquire knowledge about politics.Moreover, if this is the case, then women who are not both employed and a parent should havesimilar levels of political knowledge as men, controlling for the effects of other independentvariables. We include a series of separate interaction variables for (1) gender and employment, (2)gender and parenthood, and (3) gender, employment, and parenthood. If employment andparenthood each have a depressing effect on political knowledge for women, but less so for men,the coefficient for the gender-employment and gender-parenthood interactions should be negative.But more importantly, if parenthood and employment combined have a stronger effect on reducingpolitical knowledge for women than men, the coefficient for the three-way interaction of gender,employment, and parenthood should be negative.

Independent Variables: Interviewer Effects

We also account for the possibility that interviewer characteristics have an impact onindividuals level of political knowledge. One process that might generate a relationship betweeninterviewer characteristics and political knowledge involves thestereotype threathypothesis, whichhas had substantial currency in recent years. This thesis is most closely associated with the work ofSteele (1997), who suggests that individuals who are the target of a widely-held negative stereotypeabout their competence are likely to under-perform when confronted with a taskusually a testthat relates to that stereotype. For instance, Steele and Aronson (1995) find that describing an examas a test of intellectual ability generates a stereotype threat for African Americans, who do lesswell on the test than other African Americans who had the test introduced to them in a mannuer thatdoes not activate the stereotype threat. The idea is that African Americans are aware of the

stereotype that they have lower levels of intellectual ability, and when the stereotype is activatedthey respond with relatively weak performance. Similarly, Davis and Silver (2003) find that AfricanAmericans exhibit lower levels of political knowledge than whites when they have a whiteinterviewer (i.e., high threat) than when they have a black interviewer. Consistent with thestereotype threat thesis, the levels of political knowledge for whites are unaffected by the race ofinterviewer.

We consider the possibility that gender differences in political knowledge are at least partly afunction of the gender of interviewer. In particular, we suggest that there is a widely-held stereotypethat women are less knowledgeable about politics than men. If so, women confronted with politicalknowledge questions posed by male interviewers should have lower levels of knowledge thanwomen answering political knowledge questions posed by female interviewers, since those negative

stereotypes are likely to be engaged for women with male interviewers. Male respondents shouldexhibit similar levels of political knowledge, regardless of the gender of the interviewer.

Unfortunately, data on the gender of interviewer are not available for the 2002 LouisianaSurvey, but there is an interviewer gender variable available for the 2000 ANES. Hence for this dataset we create an interviewer gender variable, coded 1 for female interviewers and 0 for maleinterviewers. Moreover, to estimate the effect of stereotype threat, we create an interaction variablefor respondent gender and interviewer gender; this variable is coded 1 for female respondentsinterviewed by female interviewers, and 0 otherwise. If the stereotype threat process is at work, one


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would expect the coefficient for the simple interviewer gender variable to be equal to 0, but thecoefficient for the interaction variable should be positive. Such a pattern in the coefficients indicatesthat female respondents whose stereotype threat is diminished by exposure to a female interviewerwill exhibit higher levels of political knowledge than female respondents facing high stereotypethreat implied by exposure to a male interviewer.

EMPIRICAL RESULTS

Patterns of Political Knowledge for Men and Women

We begin with a simple descriptive summary of the gender gap in political knowledge forrespondents in the 2000 ANES and 2002 Louisiana Survey. In Table 1 we present the distributionof responses to political knowledge items from the 2000 ANES, broken down by gender, while inTable 2 we do the same thing for political knowledge items from the 2002 Louisiana Survey.Respondents are classified into three categories on each item: (1) answered correctly, meaning thatthe respondents answer to the question matches the correct answer; (2) answered incorrectly,meaning that the respondent did attempt to offer an answer but that the answer was not correct; and

(3) answered dont know (hereafter denoted DK), meaning that the respondent was unable tooffer an answer.

Three things stand out for the results reported in Tables 1 and 2. First, men clearly have agreater propensity than women to provide correct answers to the questions posed in these twosurveys. In Table 1 men are more likely to be able to identify Trent Lott (14.0% to 4.7%, adifference of 9.3%), William Rehnquist (18.0% to 4.9%, 13.1%), Tony Blair (41.3% to 29.3%,12.0%), Janet Reno (66.5% to 46.4%, 20.1%), George Bushs home state (94.2% to 86.0%, 8.2%),and Al Gores home state (75.8% to 61.5%, 14.3%). In Table 2 men are more likely to identify DickCheney (78.2% to 69.2%, 9.0%), Tom Daschle (44.7% to 27.0%, 17.7%), William Rehnquist(41.8% to 25.7%, 16.1%), Dennis Hastert (23.4% to 6.9%, 16.5%), Mary Landrieu (73.5% to70.1%, 2.4%), Charles Dewitt (17.1% to 10.6%, 6.5%), John Breaux (73.5% to 63.6%, 9.9%), Fox

McKeithan (41.3% to 31.2%, 10.1%), and Mike Foster (94.0% to 88.0%, 6%). The genderdifferences in correct answers range from 8.2% to 20.1% for 2000 ANES data and from 2.4% to17.7% for 2002 Louisiana Survey data. In no case are women more likely than men to answer agiven knowledge question correctly. Given these distributions, it would appear that men havehigher levels of political knowledge than women.

Second, if women are less likely to answer political knowledge questions correctly, how arethey answering? A close examination of the results in Table 1 and 2 reveals that women areconsistently more likely than men to respond to political knowledge questions with DK responses.For all of the items in Tables 1 and 2, the percentage of DK responses for women exceeds thepercentage of DK responses for men. In some cases, the difference is substantial; for instance,74.5% of women give DK responses when asked to identify Trent Lott, compared to 50.0% of men,

for a difference of 24.5%. On the other hand, very few men (3.1%) or women (4.8%) give DKresponses to the question about identifying George Bushs home state, and the gap is only 1.7%.Overall, though, women are more likely than men to give DK responses.

Third, men and women differ across specific items in their propensities to give incorrectanswers, but overall men and women are about equally likely to give incorrect answers. The gendergap in incorrect answers lacks a consistent pattern. On some items, men are more likely thanwomen to give incorrect answers, but on other items women are more likely to give incorrectanswers. On several items men and women are relatively indistinguishable in terms of their


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propensities to give incorrect answers. All in all, the differences in behavior between men andwomen are focused on the greater likelihood of men to give correct answers and the greaterlikelihood of women to give DK responses.

Few scholars studying political knowledge will be surprised that women are less likely to givecorrect responses and more likely to give DK responses. How should these patterns be interpreted?

On one hand, Mondak (1999) (and echoed by Gidengil et al., 2003) suggests that DK responses donot necessarily reflect a lack of knowledge. Rather, some individuals might have partial knowledge,and the DK response represents an unwillingness to risk an answer that might be incorrect. Someindividuals with partial knowledge may be more willing than others to offer an answer than others,and perhaps men differ from women in ways that lead them to offer answers with only partialknowledge. If men with partial knowledge are more likely to answer knowledge questions thanwomen with the same level of partial knowledge, then men will at least occasionally provide correctanswers and hence overall appear to be more knowledgeable than women. Moreover, Mondaksuggests that individuals may have psychological attributes (e.g., self-confidence, risk taking) thatmakes it more or less likely to offer answers to political knowledge questions when they have onlypartial knowledge. If men have greater levels of self-confidence and a greater propensity to takerisks, they may be more likely than women to answer knowledge questions with only partial

knowledge.

While there is no doubt a great deal of validity to Mondaks assertions, we are skeptical thatthese processes provide a full explanation for the gender gap in political knowledge. For one thing,men are clearly able to provide more correct answers than women, and the gender gap in correctanswers is large enough to make it unlikely that it is a function of the greater propensity of men toguess when they have partial knowledge. Women are also roughly equally likely to provideincorrect answers, so women would have to be much more likely than men to have partialknowledge andfunnel their answers into the DK category rather than make an effort to guess. Menwith partial knowledge would also have to be more likely to guess andoffer a correct answer. Therewould also have to be a great deal of correct guessing by men to result in the observed gender gap.All of this is possible, but given the open-ended nature of the questions that requires individuals to

recall the correct answer rather than just recognize the correct answer from a set of alternatives, wethink that it is unlikely to account for the overall gap in political knowledge levels for men andwomen.

As noted, we also create political knowledge scales for the 2000 ANES and 2002 LouisianaSurvey data. These scales are created by summing the number of correct answers across thecomponent political knowledge items, and they serve as the dependent variables in much of ouranalysis. In Table 3 we report the means and distribution of these scales, broken down by gender.Here again, we find that men have consistently higher levels of political knowledge than women.For the general knowledge scale from the 2000 ANES, the knowledge scores for women areskewed toward the low end of the distribution; approximately 62% of women correctly answer twoquestions or less, compared to approximately 46% of men. Moreover, men correctly answer an

average of 2.64 items, compared to 2.02 items for women; this difference in mean knowledge levelsfor men and women is highly significant (t = -8.00). In this national sample neither men nor womenhave overwhelmingly high levels of political knowledge, but these data suggest that women haveeven lower levels of knowledge than men.

For the 2002 Louisiana Survey, a similar pattern is observed. For the 10-point general politicalknowledge scale, men have a mean number of correct answers of 4.88, compared to a mean forwomen of only 3.92; on average, men answer almost one more question correctly than women, outof a total of nine questions. Only 25% of women answer more than five questions correctly, while


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40% of men are able to answer more than five questions correctly. This pattern extends to both thenational and state political knowledge scales. Men answer 1.88 knowledge questions about nationalpolitical figures correctly, compared to only 1.29 for women. The gender gap in political knowledgeis narrower (but still discernible) for state political figures, with men answering 3.00 questionscorrectly compared to 2.63 correct answers for women. All of these differences in means are highlysignificant.

All in all, men exhibit higher levels of political knowledge than women. This is true for ageneral knowledge scale measured in a national sample, as well as for a general knowledge scaleand specific national and state knowledge scales measured in a Louisiana sample. The knowledgelevels for women tend toward the low end of the knowledge distribution, while the knowledgelevels for men are typically balanced around the middle of the knowledge distribution. The keyquestion left unanswered is: what explains the gender gap in political knowledge? Why are menmore knowledgeable about politics than women?

Estimating Gender Effects for Gender Knowledge Scales

In order to gain some leverage over these questions, we estimate a full model of political

knowledge, with the general knowledge scales depicted as a function of a variety of socioeconomicand demographic variables, political attitudes and engagement, media exposure, and personal lifecircumstances. Our strategy is to estimate a full model that includes a range of independentvariables that might be expected to differentiate men and women and that, therefore, might accountfor the significant effect of gender on political knowledge. If we include in our models controlvariables that account for gender differences, then the coefficient for gender should shrink tononsignificance.

2000 ANES Survey. In Table 4 we report the OLS regression estimates for our full model ofpolitical knowledge, using data from the 2000 ANES. Model (1) includes socioeconomic,demographic, political attitudes, and media exposure independent variables, while in Model (2) weinclude the same set of independent variables as well as the personal life circumstances variables.

As a starting point, we should note that in a bivariate model the coefficient for gender suggests adifference in political knowledge for men and women of about six-tenths of a point (b = -0.625, t =-8.00). The question is whether this gender gap in political knowledge is diminished by theinclusion of independent variables that should account for differences in political knowledge formen and women.

In Model (1) of Table 4, we find that the coefficient for gender is negative and highlysignificant (b = -0.426, t = -5.60), though it is noteworthy that the size of the coefficient is reducedby about one-third by the inclusion of control variables. Taking into account the effects of the otherindependent variables in the model, men and women still differ by about four-tenths of a point intheir levels of political knowledge. This suggests that we have not accounted for the full range ofindependent variables that explain gender differences in political knowledge.

Several independent variables are found to have a strong effect on individuals level of politicalknowledge. Among the socioeconomic and demographic variables, the effects of education standout; as education increases, so do levels of political knowledge (b = 0.235, t = 8.64). Race is also animportant variable, with blacks exhibiting political knowledge levels that are almost seven-tenths ofa point lower than similarly situated individuals in other racial groups (b = -0.682, t = -5.12). Someof the political attitudes and engagement variables are also important predictors of politicalknowledge. Attentiveness to politics, following politics closely, antigovernment attitudes, polarizedparty placement, and political efficacy all have significant positive effects on political knowledge.


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Individuals who pay attention to politics, follow politics closely, are hostile to government solutionsrather than private or free market solutions to policy problems, perceive the political parties as beingdifferent on policy grounds, and have high levels of political efficacy are much moreknowledgeable about politics than other individuals. Finally, we find that media exposure is relatedto political knowledge. Watching national television news (b = 0.037, t = 2.19) and reading a dailynewspaper (b = 0.051, t = 3.65) increase political knowledge, though it is interesting to note that

getting news about politics from local television news has a null (or, if anything, a negative) effecton political knowledge. It would appear that national television news and newspapers are goodsources of information about politics.

In Table 4, Model (2) we add personal life circumstances to our model, and the result is afurther diminution of the gender coefficient. Some observers have speculated that differences inpolitical knowledge for women reflect differences in how women balance work and familyresponsibilities compared to men. Controlling for several variables representing these personal lifecircumstances, as well as the control variables included in Model (1), we find that the gender effectis reduced by about one-half (b = -0.325, t = -2.46). Part of this is due to the inclusion of interactionvariables representing various combinations of personal life circumstances that one might expect todiminish political knowledge, especially among women. But it is important to note that the gender

effect remains, even after estimating the effects of various personal life circumstances.

It is noteworthy that only one of the independent variables reflecting personal lifecircumstances has an effect on political knowledge. Single mothers have significantly lower levelsof political knowledge, controlling for the effects of other independent variables included in themodel (b = -0.430, t = -2.11). This finding suggests that the well-documented stresses and time-consuming nature of single motherhood diminishes the ability to acquire political information.Other personal life circumstances appear to have little effect on political knowledge. Thecoefficients for marital status, parenthood, and employment variables are all small andnonsignificant. Employment does not appear to have a different effect on knowledge for womenand men (b = -0.040, t = -0.24), nor does employment with children (b = -0.075, t = -0.92). All inall, it appears that women continue to have lower levels of political knowledge than men, but that

single parenthood accentuates gender differences in political knowledge.

Among these independent variables, what accounts for knowledge differences between menand women? The coefficients in our model provide tantalizing evidence about the particularlycharacteristics of individuals who are most likely to have high levels of political knowledge. It ispossible that these characteristics differ for men and women, and these differences could accountfor the fact that men have higher levels of political knowledge than women in a bivariate model butthat this effect is moderately attenuated when other variables are included as predictors of politicalknowledge. Our next step is to ascertain which of our significant predictor variables actuallydifferentiate men and women. The identification of these variables will begin to pinpoint theparticularly characteristics that make men and women different in their levels of politicalknowledge.

In Table 5 we report mean values on our independent variables, calculated separately forwomen and men. As one can readily see from these results, women and men are significantlydifferent from each other in a number of ways. First, among the socioeconomic and demographicvariables in the ANES sample, women have significantly lower levels of education and familyincome. Since education is so strongly (and positively) related to political knowledge, and sincewomen respondents have, on average, significantly lower levels of education than men, it is likelythat the gender gap in education at least partly accounts for the gender gap in political knowledge.


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Family income is, on the other hand, unrelated to political knowledge, so the gender gap in incomeis unlikely to contribute much to the gender gap in political knowledge.

Second, men and women differ considerably on several of the variables in the political attitudesand engagement category. Men and women differ significantly in terms of partisan identification,ideology, folded ideology, attentiveness to politics, follows politics, degree to which they are

opinionated, political efficacy, and antigovernment attitudes. Among these variables, attentivenessto politics, follows politics, political efficacy, and antigovernment attitudes are positively related topolitical knowledge. Women are less attentive to politics, follow politics less frequently, have lowerlevels of political efficacy, and much lowerlevels of antigovernment attitudes; these attitudes andbehaviors undoubtedly diminish political knowledge levels for women relative to knowledge levelsof men. On the other hand, ideological conservatism is negatively related to political knowledge, sothe fact that women are, on average, more liberal than men means that this contributes towardshrinking the gender gap in political knowledge. Taken as a whole, the political attitudes andengagement variables contribute to a widening of the gap in political knowledge for men andwomen.

Third, media exposure also contributes to the gender gap in political knowledge. Women are

both more likely to use local television news and less likely to use newspapers as sources ofpolitical information. Newspaper exposure has a strong positive effect on political knowledge, sothe greater propensity of men to obtain political information from newspapers increases their levelof political knowledge vis--vis that of women. Moreover, the greater likelihood that women uselocal television news might also have the effect of widening the gender knowledge gap, since localtelevision news exposure depresses political knowledge, though this effect is only at the border ofconventional levels of statistical significance. While we cannot be entirely sure of the localtelevision news effect, we can be confident that the gender gap in political knowledge is enhancedby the greater likelihood that men rely on newspaper news.

Finally, among the personal life circumstances variables, none both (1) have a significant effect(Table 4) and (2) differentiate men and women (Table 5). Hence it is unlikely that these variables

contribute to the knowledge gap in political knowledge.

2002 Louisiana Survey. In Table 6 we also estimate a variation on our political knowledgemodel using data from the 2002 Louisiana Survey. We begin by noting that in a bivariate model thecoefficient for gender suggests a difference in political knowledge for men and women of almost afull point (b = -0.952, t = -6.69) on a ten-point scale. Clearly women have lower levels of politicalknowledge then men in the Louisiana sample. As one can readily see from Model (1), gendercontinues to have a strong effect on political knowledge, even controlling for the effects of otherindependent variables (b = -0.729, t = -4.51). The magnitude of the coefficient is reduced somewhatin the full model, though controlling for other variables reduces the gender effect only about 25%.Obviously, gender has an independent effect on political knowledge above and beyond the effectsof other variables.

Many of the control variables in our Louisiana model are significantly related to politicalknowledge. All of the socioeconomic and demographic variables have significant effects on thedependent variable, with age, education, family income, and home ownership having positiveeffects on political knowledge. Black citizens have levels of political knowledge that areapproximately four-tenths of a point lower than those of other citizens. Among the political attitudesand engagement variables, we find that the coefficients for partisan identification, foldedpartisanship, attentiveness to politics, and antigovernment attitudes are all positive and statisticallysignificant; Republicans, strong partisans, those who are attentive to politics, and those who prefer


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private sector or market-based responses to policy problems are more knowledgeable about politics.We also find that national television news and newspaper news exposure have positive effects onpolitical knowledge, but that local television news exposure does not; this is in keeping with thefindings from the 2000 ANES (reported above) that national television and newspaper news sourcesproduce stronger political knowledge effects.

In Model (2) we add personal life circumstances variables to the variables included in Model(1). Interestingly, the magnitude of the coefficient for gender increases (b = -0.890, t = -3.08)compared with the coefficient in Model (1), but this is no doubt due to the inclusion of variousinteraction variables. Regardless, the significant gender effects on political knowledge remain inplace, and the coefficients for most of the other independent variables are of similar magnitude,direction, and significance. We also find that children have a depressing effect on politicalknowledge, with individuals with children having political knowledge levels that are about one-halfof a point lower than those without children (b = -0.532, t = -2.48). Interestingly, none of theinteraction effects are statistically significant, indicating that women are no more or less sensitive toemployment, having children, or both.

Now that we estimates of the effects of various independent variables on political knowledge,

do any of these independent variables account forgender differences in political knowledge? Aswe did for the 2000 ANES data, we calculate mean differences for men and women on each of theindependent variables, and these differences are reported in Table 7. If a given independent variablehas a significant effect on political knowledge, and if men and women differ significantly in theirvalues on that variable, then it is highly likely that that independent variable helps to account forsome of the gender gap in political knowledge.

As one can see, men and women differ significantly in their values on several key independentvariables. First, there is a significant difference between men and women respondents in terms offamily income, race, and home ownership, with women respondents differing from menrespondents in terms of having significantly lower family incomes, a higher likelihood of beingblack, and a lower likelihood of being a homeowner. Since family income and home ownership are

positively and significantly related to political knowledge, and since being black lowers politicalknowledge (see Table 6), the difference between men and women on these three variables verylikely contributes to increasing the gender gap in political knowledge. Simply, women haveattributes on three important predictors of political knowledge that are associated with lowerknowledge. Second, in terms of political attitudes and engagement, women have significantly lowervalues on partisan identification, attentiveness to politics, political trust, and antigovernmentattitudes, along with higher mean values on folded partisanship. Partisans identification(Republican), attentiveness to politics, and antigovernment attitudes all have very strong positiveeffects on political knowledge, yet women have significantly lower mean values on these variables;hence some of the gender gap in political knowledge can be explained by gender differences onthese variables. Third, the effect of media exposure is a wash. Women have significantly greaterlocal television news exposure, but this is the one media variable that is unrelated to political

knowledge. Moreover, national television news and newspaper news exposure have positive effectson political knowledge, but neither of these two variables differentiate men and womensignificantly. Finally, none of the personal life circumstances variables appear to contribute to thegender gap in political knowledge.

In sum, our analysis of the general political knowledge scales from the 2000 ANES and the2002 Louisiana Survey reveals a consistent, strong gender effect. Regardless of model specification,the coefficients for gender are negative and significant, indicating that women have lower levels ofpolitical knowledge than men even in the face of a wide range of statistical controls.


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Moreover, we find that many of the independent variables included in our models account forpart of the gender gap in political knowledge. In simple bivariate models of political knowledge, thecoefficients for gender are sizeable and statistically significant, but in the multivariate models thegender coefficients are decreased in magnitude. This suggests that the independent variablesincluded in our models account for some of the linkage between gender and political knowledge.

We find that several of our independent variables both differentiate men and women andhave asignificant effect on political knowledge. In particular, men and women differ in their values onseveral socioeconomic and demographic variables (i.e., education, income), political attitudes andengagement variables (i.e., attentiveness to politics, follow politics, antigovernment attitudes,polarized party placement), and media exposure. Several of these variables undoubtedly contributeto a reduction in the overall size of the gender coefficient. Nonetheless, even as we are able toaccount for some of the gender gap in political knowledge, there is a substantial amount of thisgender gap that remains and is left unexplained by our model.

Differences in Gender Effects for National and State Political Knowledge

One possibility that is worth considering is that the effect of gender differs for national and state

political knowledge domains. Specifically, some scholars speculate that men are generally moreinterested in (and hence more knowledgeable about) national politics, and that women are moreinterested in (and hence more knowledgeable about) more localized politics (Delli Carpini andKeeter, 1996; Darcy, Welch, and Clark, 1987). We do not have data on local political knowledge,but in the 2002 Louisiana Survey we asked respondents political knowledge questions that coverboth the national and state political domains. To be sure, Delli Carpini and Keeter (1996) find thatgender has a significant effect on national and state political knowledge, but not for local politicalknowledge. On the other hand, if women have a localized focus to their political interest, we wouldexpect women to be more knowledgeable about politics as it gets closer to having a direct impact ontheir lives. Hence we expect the gender gap to be stronger for the national political knowledge scalethan for the state political knowledge scale; for the latter, the gender gap in political knowledgeshould be diminished or close to 0.

In Table 8 we report the OLS estimates for our separate models of national and state politicalknowledge. For national political knowledge, gender has a strong negative effect on the dependentvariable (b = -0.451, t = -4.76). This coefficient suggests that, controlling for the effects of otherindependent variables in the model, men score about six-tenths of a point higher on the five-pointnational political knowledge scale than women. This coefficient is approximately 25% smaller inmagnitude than the effect of gender on national political knowledge in a simple bivariate model (b =-0.592, t = -7.80), so controlling for the effect of other variables has a moderate effect on themagnitude of the gender coefficient in this instance.

On the other hand, based on the estimates for the model of state political knowledge found inthe second column of Table 8, we find that the effect of gender is substantially lower than in the

national political knowledge model (b = -0.227, t = -2.23). Simply, gender has a weaker effect onpolitical knowledge in the state politics domain, with women exhibiting levels of state politicalknowledge that are only about one-quarter of a point (on a six-point scale) low

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