The gender gap in support for governments during the COVID crisis

Abstract

Using data covering most European Union Member States, we study how the support for national governments has unravelled in the first months of the COVID pandemic. Motivated by the growing evidence on the uneveneconomic impact of this crisis across genders, we study if suchunequal economic burden is related to differences in support for public authorities between men and women. While the support for national governments has overall faded in the period considered, the decline has been more pronounced for women and working women in particular. We find indication that the decline in support signals a shift in concerns among Europeans and women in particular, from the health emergency to the economic consequences of the pandemic. We impute up to a third of the widening gender gap in support for government to the shift of emphasis from the health to the economic dimension of the crisis.