News/Commentary

New poll confirms long-standing perception about liberal women

February 14, 2025 | | Print Article

A recently published survey confirmed what many have been thinking all along about women on the left.

The 2024 American Family Survey revealed a wide gap in how women between the ages of 18 and 40 feel about their lives depending on their ideology.

“Young liberal women are markedly less satisfied with life than their conservative peers. Specifically, we found that 37% of conservative women reported being ‘completely satisfied’ with life, whereas only 12% of liberal women did,” the study found.

“Young conservative women are three times as likely to report being very satisfied with life compared to young liberal women. Moreover, liberal women are two to three times more likely to report they are ‘not satisfied’ with their lives, compared to conservative women,” it continues.

 

The survey noted the “striking” results when looking specifically at how marriage, churchgoing, and loneliness played into the differences.

“Conservative women ages 18-40 are married at rates that are 20 percentage points than liberal women in the same age group. And whereas over half of conservative women in this age group attend church weekly, only 12% of their liberal peers do,” the survey noted, adding that “these two factors account for about half the ideological gap among young women.”

“We’ve seen in the research that conservative women tend to be more likely to embrace a sense of agency and to have the sense that they are not, in any way, the victim of larger structural realities or forces,” Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia, told Fox News Digital.

“They’re also less likely to catastrophize about public events and concerns,” and “more likely to think of themselves as captains of their own fate,” he added.

The annual, nationwide survey of 3,000 Americans found that liberal women ages 18 to 40 “are much more likely to report frequent feelings of loneliness,” with 29% saying they feel lonely a “few times a week or more” compared to 11% of conservative women.

The survey concluded that the” ideological divide does not appear to be just a consequence of negative thinking; it also seems to flow from the fact that liberal young women are less likely to be integrated into core American institutions—specifically marriage and religion—that lend meaning, direction, and a sense of solidarity to women’s lives.”

Any changes to young women’s emotional health will “require not only a change in thinking but also a renewal of young liberal women’s connection to America’s core institutions—family and faith.”

Frieda Powers
Latest posts by Frieda Powers (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles