We have explored the causes of the rising tide of gender equality, but not yet the consequences. During the postwar era, the conventional wisdom in political science held that women in Western democracies were politically more conservative than men. Gender differences in party preferences were never as marked as the classic electoral cleavages of class, region, and religion; there were no mass “women's parties” like those associated with trade unions, regions, and churches. Nevertheless, “women's conservatism” was seen as a persistent and well-established phenomenon. During the 1980s, this conventional wisdom came under increasing challenge. In many West European countries, a process of gender dealignment appeared, with studies reporting minimal sex differences in voting choice and party preference. And in the United States, the phenomenon of the gender gap manifested itself in the early 1980s, with women shifting their allegiance toward the Democratic Party while men moved toward the Republican Party on a stable and consistent basis, reversing the previous pattern of voting and partisanship.

This gender realignment in the United States raises the question of whether similar developments are occurring elsewhere. If this phenomenon is caused by factors inherent in societal modernization, such as increased female participation in the paid workforce, the break-up of the traditional family, and the transformation of sex roles in the home, then we would expect to find similar gender gaps emerging in other postindustrial nations.