Education magnifies social and gender gaps in political engagement

an image of a girl writing at a desk - Young people need better access to civic activities in schools to address social and gender gaps in political engagement that emerge during adolescence, according to a new report by UCL, University of Roehampton and University of Southampton researchers. Published today and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the report identifies a growing gender gap in political interest between ages 16 and 30 - with girls less likely than boys to be interested in politics by age 16, and their political interest growing at a slower rate between ages 16 and 30. At age 16, the probability of girls reporting that they are quite or very interested in politics was around one in four (23%), compared to 28% for boys. By age 30, this gap had widened to just under one in three (29%) for women and more than half (52%) for men. When breaking these differential growth rates down by highest qualification at age 25, the authors found that women with lower level and upper secondary vocational qualifications (eg Btech) had significantly lower growth rates than all other groups in the study. In fact, the proportion of women with an upper secondary vocational qualification at age 25 who said they are quite or very interested in politics declined from 36% to 19% between ages 16 and 30 - while those with an upper secondary academic qualification (eg A levels) witnessed a growth from 24% to 39% during this time. The same contrasting trends could not be found for men, as they showed rising levels of political interest between 16 and 30 regardless of their level or type of qualification.