Ideological orientations and left-right self-identifications of young Polish men and women: an image of the political gender-generation gap

Abstract

The subject of the author’s interest is the diversity of ideological orientations due to gender and age. The theoretical findings so far indicate that in developed democracies already at the end of the 1990s there was a reversal of the ideological positions of women and men. Recent social research shows that also in Poland women identify with the left to a greater extent than men, and in the younger generation these differences are even greater. The aim of the article is to show in detail the ideological differences between young men and women in Poland. The author poses two types of research questions: (1) descriptive and explanatory, which concern the characteristics of similarities and differences in the ideological orientations of young women and men; (2) methodological, which concern how to measure this phenomenon. The author assumes that the measurement of left-right self-identification used in many studies brings an overly simplified picture of the respondents’ real views, beliefs and values, which can be described as ideological orientations. Therefore, he proposes the use of multidimensional tools (issue-based scale) that allow to better describe complex political attitudes. In search of answers, the author analyzes data from his own survey conducted among a large group of Polish students.