Across Europe, the political debate has rarely looked more polarised. Media narratives frequently describe societies as becoming sharply divided between younger progressive and older conservative generations.
A growing body of research also suggests that political attitudes are becoming more divided by gender, particularly among younger cohorts. Young women seem to be adopting more liberal positions than young men on issues such as climate change and immigration.
Using data from the European Social Survey, which I have led since 2013, my team has examined the truth of these claims. We’ve done this by looking at long-term trends across eastern, western and northern Europe between 2002 and 2023 in relation to political orientation, climate change fears and attitudes towards immigration.
Political orientation over time by age and gender
European Social Survey, CC BY-NC-ND
Across all country groups, younger respondents consistently place themselves further to the left on the political orientation scale than older respondents.
Yet while older respondents’ political views have been relatively stable in northern and western Europe, in eastern Europe we’ve seen more fluctuation and a clearer shift towards the right in recent survey rounds.
Younger respondents in eastern Europe are shifting in the opposite direction. This suggests an emerging generational divide in political orientation within the region.
Gender patterns in political orientation also vary considerably across age groups in Europe as a whole. Among older respondents, men and women generally mirror one another in their ideological positioning over time. Among younger cohorts, however, gender gaps are substantially wider.
The divide is most pronounced in northern Europe. Young women there consistently position themselves further to the left than young men. By contrast, young men and women in eastern Europe appear to be becoming somewhat more ideologically aligned over time – though young women there are still more leftward aligned.
The political views of young women, particularly in western Europe, also fluctuate more across survey rounds. These shifts have coincided with major political and economic events, including a modest movement towards the right around the period of the global financial crisis in 2008 and a shift leftwards during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Worry about climate change over time by age and gender
European Social Survey, CC BY-NC-ND
Across all regions, survey rounds and age groups, women have consistently expressed greater worry about climate change than men. The size of this gap differs between regions and by age.
Between the generations, we see moderate differences in climate concern. But our findings do not consistently follow the common expectation that younger people are more worried than older generations. In eastern and western Europe, older respondents have often reported levels of worry equal to, or marginally exceeding, younger groups.
Overall, however, worry about climate change appears either stable or gradually declining across most demographic groups. But while gender gaps among older cohorts remain relatively small, they are substantially wider among younger respondents – particularly in northern Europe.
Young women in this region are the only group for whom worry about climate change shows a modest upward trend over time. This reflects a growing divide between young men and young women in this region. Climate concern among young men has declined while concern among young women has remained stable or increased slightly.
Levels of worry in eastern and western Europe display greater similarity across age and gender groups, with men and women showing declining levels of climate concern in recent years.
Taken together, these findings suggest that worry about climate change is not strongly divided along generational lines. Instead, it is structured through gender differences within younger cohorts, particularly in northern Europe.
Immigration tolerance over time by age and gender
European Social Survey, CC BY-NC-ND
Attitudes towards immigration differ more by region than by gender and generation alone. In eastern Europe, attitudes towards migrants have shifted more substantially than other regions over time.
Tolerance of immigration in eastern Europe dropped around the period of the 2015-16 migrant crisis. A notable but relatively short-lived increase in tolerance is then visible around 2020.
This fluctuating pattern may reflect changing political and social contexts, including the COVID pandemic and subsequent displacement of Ukrainians following the start of the war there in 2022. It may also reflect what we call mode effects, which refers to differing opinions as a result of there being an interviewer or not.
Attitudes towards immigration in northern and western Europe have remained comparatively stable and, perhaps surprisingly given the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the media and politicians in some of these regions, are generally becoming more positive over time.
Gender differences over immigration are relatively small among older respondents across all regions, with older men and women tending to follow very similar trends. However, gender differences remain evident among younger cohorts.
Young women in northern Europe consistently express substantially higher levels of tolerance towards migrants than their male counterparts, reinforcing the broader pattern of a growing gender divide in views among younger people there.
Overall, our findings show that Europe’s political polarisation is indeed generational. But rather than being shaped by generation alone, political attitudes in Europe seem to be increasingly shaped by an interacting combination of generation, gender and regional differences.
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