American political ideology as a whole has shifted left in recent years, but women are becoming even more liberal, according to Gallup.
The survey data, released Wednesday, shows that while the country remains largely center-right, the percentage of those identifying as or leaning liberal has increased over the past three decades, and is now just 1 percent under it’s all-time high.
Roughly 36 percent of adults identify as conservative, 25 percent as liberal and the rest identify as either moderate or unsure, according to the poll.
When broken down by gender ideology, women in the youngest and oldest age groups said they were more likely to identify as liberal.
Women ages 18-29 were 40 percent more likely to be liberal in 2023, a slight decrease from 41 percent in 2022 and 44 percent in 2020, but still higher than the 30 percent in 2013. Those ages 65 and older were 25 percent more likely to identify as liberal — a slight increase from the 21 percent reported in 2013.
Despite the leftward shift, the 2023 data shows more women ages 65 and older are leaning conservative than in the past, with 40 percent identifying as such, according to the survey.
Party ideology among men, however, was relatively stable, though the left did see a slight increase.
Since 1999, there’s been a five-point increase in men ages 30-49 who identify as liberal, and a six-point increase in those ages 65 and older who said they were liberal, according to Gallup.
“The former represents fundamental differences in the belief systems of women entering adulthood in the past decade versus in prior decades,” the pollsters explained in their findings. “By contrast, the change among senior women may be more about generational replacement, with formerly middle-aged women bringing their slightly more liberal attitudes into their golden years.”
“A widening of the ideological gaps between men and women over time has been due to women becoming more liberal at a faster rate than men, rather than women and men moving in different ideological directions,” they added.
The Gallup survey is based on telephone interviews from combined surveys conducted in 2023, with a sample of 12,145 adults. The margin of error for the full sample is plus or minus 1 percentage point at the 95 percent confidence level.