Women Are Consistently More Pro-Lockdown, Study Finds

Researchers analysed data from eight countries, and found a consistent gender difference in attitudes to lockdown, with women being more pro-lockdown. This is despite the fact that COVID-19 is more lethal in men.

2 min read

Scanning the British media, you’d be hard-pressed to find an obvious gender difference in attitudes to lockdown. There are both men and women represented among prominent lockdown proponents, as well as among prominent lockdown sceptics.

Which makes a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last year all the more interesting. Vincenzo Galasso and colleagues analysed data from a survey carried out in eight OECD countries (including Italy, the U.K. and Australia) in March–April of 2020.

The survey measured respondents’ concern about the pandemic, their attitudes to lockdown measures such as closing schools and ‘non-essential’ businesses, and their self-reported compliance with government restrictions (see here for a full list of measures).

What did the researchers find? Across all eight countries (with the exception of Austria in the second wave), women were more likely than men to be concerned about the pandemic. They were also more likely to support lockdown measures, and reported greater compliance with government restrictions.

These findings are shown in the chart below. Note: “Overall agreement” corresponds to a measure of agreement with lockdown measures, while “Overall Compliance” corresponds to a measure of self-reported compliance. The units on the y-axis are percentage points.

As the chart indicates, the gender differences were not huge: women were about seven percentage points more pro-lockdown than men. But they were robust, and not explained by demographic characteristics like age, education or occupation type.

The finding that women are more pro-lockdown is somewhat surprising, given that COVID-19 appears to be more lethal for men. After all, you might expect groups that are at higher risk to be more in favour of restrictions.

The authors suggest that women’s greater compliance with government restrictions could help to explain the gender gap in risk of death from COVID-19, though I suspect any contribution is small. Women mount stronger immune responses to most pathogens, and this almost certainly explains why COVID-19 is more lethal in men.

Interestingly, the two Western states at the extreme ends of the ‘containment spectrum’ – New Zealand (the most restrictive) and South Dakota (the least) are both led by women. This illustrates that moderate gender differences in attitudes only go so far in explaining actual differences in policy.

The researchers’ finding is nonetheless interesting, and their paper is worth reading in full.

Comments

This week across the site:

Email me alerts for this discussion
Notify of

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

113 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
SomersetHoops
SomersetHoops
5 years ago

Once again, we have a graph that doesn’t seem to make sense. It seems to say that the maximum percentage of women concerned about health issues from covid is 13%, and the minimum percentage of men with the same concerns is less than 7%. I’m sure that is not what it is meant to say, but it doesn’t make any sense in the context of the dialogue extract, and possibly the complete version does. The dialogue presented suggests to me that B. Johnson is too influenced by his partner who nobody voted for, and I voted for the Johnson that was presented at the election and not the one in thrall to the woman he now resides with and her overly climate change biased opinions and other what I consider to be non-conservative values. It’s time for Johnson to resign and join the Liberal Democrats, where he now belongs.

ebygum
ebygum
5 years ago

As a woman I am affronted that the vile creature you have a photograph of is even classed in the same gender as me. She might look like a female on the outside but evil incarnate takes on many forms. If you don’t believe me have a look at the Abortion Law brought in specifically by her…against the wishes of most of the electorate….it makes a real human being shudder.
https://righttolife.org.uk/news/43-increase-in-late-term-abortions-coincides-with-nz-pm-introducing-extreme-abortion-law-to-new-zealand

kate
kate
5 years ago

https://odysee.com/@en:a5/PK_Tot-durch-Impfung_english:a
This is a special conference led by Vivaine Fisher from the Corona Committee.
It goes into proper medical detail on what is in these “vaccines” There are slides which show metallic objects moving in the “vaccines” It suggests to me that the “mad” theories about transhumanism could have merit, as some of these objects are clearly engineered nanobot type objects.
The part on the vaccine contents starts at about 1.19.
There is a good presentation from a German surgeon who is working with a group of international doctors to investigate and publicise this.
Much of the conference is hard to follow because of the translation, which is hurried out, due to the importance and urgency of getting this information out as soon as possible, given the need to protect children from being experimented on with these deadly injections.
Please publicise and share

debwestsussex
debwestsussex
5 years ago

Sorry? Join any of the anti lockdown protests and I would say it’s at least 50% women, if not more. Or more likely women of a certain age are more Bolshie.

ebygum
ebygum
5 years ago
Reply to  debwestsussex

Thanks deb…I think that’s me exactly…while I’m not disagreeing with the study in particular, most of the unvaxxed I know are women…and we ARE the committed Bolshie ones…my husband is unvaxxed and on board but it’s me who marched in London, it’s me that’s here commenting on forums!?

Rogerborg
Rogerborg
5 years ago

tl;dr version: tax takers are happier to take taxes than tax payers are to pay them.

FrankFisher
FrankFisher
5 years ago

I’m afraid giving women the vote should now be recognized as the root cause of all the UK’s subsequent problems. Not all women are emotionally-led idiots – my wife is just about the most clued-up person I know – but enough are to swing the balance. You only have to look at the disproportionately female pro-Blair voting, even after iraq, to recognize the problem.

chas cowie
chas cowie
5 years ago

I don’t think that gender is an important factor that I will be worrying about. There appears to be correlation but I doubt there is causation. (I also know too many female sceptics to be worried about this statistical analysis.)

Fiona Walker
Fiona Walker
5 years ago

Not me, not in my name.

Sforzesca
Sforzesca
5 years ago

Whatever. Please be at next big London demo, this Saturday, 1.00 pm Hyde Park. Bring a friend – male or female. In fact bring lots.

QuickDrawMcGraw
QuickDrawMcGraw
5 years ago

Oh wake up!! It’s more divide and conquer bullshit!! They are trying to split up the growing sceptic movement. James Corbett was highlighting this the other day. These people are scum but they’re sneaky clever scum. Don’t fall for it!

186NO
186NO
5 years ago

At last, a voice of reason…

Not falling for it QDM.

paul smith
paul smith
5 years ago

I have but one thing to say regarding this ‘revelation’:
“No shit“

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
5 years ago

Western women contribute far less value to their economies than men, despite every effort to bring men down to their level, yet they have consistently voted for the expansion of government into a nanny state. It’s very difficult to see how the welfare state, mass immigration and the intrusion of the state into every aspect of our lives happens without the votes of women and an army of henpeckers to enforce it. The whole introduction of women into the workforce was sold to women for entirely selfish reasons, so they could be “liberated” from their male oppressors and serve come corporate masters instead and spend whatever money they made on useless consumer rubbish. It certainly didn’t benefit their families to have 2 breadwinners for the price of 1. They make 80% of household spending decisions despite generating less than 30% of the income. They vote for every big government intervention while not even considering how to pay for it.

But this whole Covid nonsense is the cherry on the cake. It was World War 2 sold to women on every level. A massive neurotic clean-fest where an army of Karens could be galvanised to hector everyone into submission. I can’t… Read more »

Mezzo18
Mezzo18
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

I don’t. I have never lived off a man in my life (including as a child) and I despise women who do and the men who keep them.

Do not make your misogynistic generalisations about me.

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
5 years ago
Reply to  Mezzo18

Who said anything about “living off a man”? You haven’t even read what I’ve written and you presume to label me as a misogynist. Typical.

RW
RW
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

It certainly didn’t benefit their families to have 2 breadwinners for the price of 1. They make 80% of household spending decisions despite generating less than 30% of the income.

For instance. Not literally, obviously. But the implication that 30% of the income cannot be enough to pay for the needs of 100% of the family and hence, everybody is living “off the man” to some degree is pretty strong.

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
5 years ago
Reply to  RW

It’s not “the needs of the family” I’m referring to. It’s the ridiculously profligate spending of the government and the wastage on status driven, lifestyle expenses. Entire industries are devoted to parting families with their money and they all know to appeal to women.

And the government drives almost all of their policymaking with emotional and irresponsible messaging to get the tearjerking ladies to pass it and then rigorously enforce it. If it were only “the needs of the family” that women were concerned with, I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, but the fact is that women spend all this money then have the nerve to initiate over 80% of divorces when they get bored.

Most Western women are not even bothering to have kids any more, so they don’t see the needs of any family to be their concern.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

Sorry about the ‘goldfish’ quip. It’s unthoughtful and inaccurate.

They don’t produce that amount of shite in a day.

Mezzo18
Mezzo18
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

Women leave men because they are boring. They don’t have children because they don’t want to be stuck living with a boring man.
They also loathe misogynistic incels.

Annie
Annie
5 years ago
Reply to  Mezzo18

Or me.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

What did I say about axe-grinding?

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

I don’t know, what did you say? How am I supposed to remember things you say?

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

Yes – sorry, it’s a bit of an ask of a goldfish. 🙂

Christ – 77th Brigade et al. must be sitting back, splitting their sides at some of the brainless shite posted on this topic – that is, if they’re not writing it.

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Of course. Because everyone who isn’t a goldfish has “RickH” emblazoned on the insides of their eyelids. Everyone knows where they were the last time they heard the teachings of “RickH”.

kate
kate
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

Women work longer hours than men in EVERY SOCIETY.

You have not noticed this because the majority of women’s work is not recognised in monetary terms.

Only male work is classed as “work” Female work is not important.

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
5 years ago
Reply to  kate

This is exactly the kind of nonsense I’m talking about. Go and look at the actual facts and figures before saying things like this. What kind of “work” are you referring to? Domestic work? You think men don’t do domestic work these days on top of all the other work? The stuff they actually get paid for because it provides value to somebody else? You want to get paid without providing value to anyone and then blame society for it? Even children don’t do that.

pan0
pan0
5 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

Oh dear, perhaps find a group on Facebook, I imagine there must be one for fellows such as yourself that need to vent. Best of luck.

Mezzo18
Mezzo18
5 years ago

Not this one! I’ve been against lockdowns and masks right from the start and have never wavered.

I would normally say ‘the difference between men and women is sex, not gender’ but, in this case, I think socialised sex differences (which is what ‘gender’ is) are what make people who behave in more traditionally ‘feminine’ ways more pro-lockdown.

I find myself unusual among my female friends in that I did not react emotionally to the ‘pandemic’. As I do in all circumstances, I read and analysed the evidence and the statistics and arrived at a rational conclusion. That was that the risk to me was minimal and that I wasn’t going to worry about it anymore, although I would do everything possible (healthy food, sunlight, exercise, Vitamin D in winter) to maximise my own immune response. That conclusion has not changed.

In contrast, female friends, along with the more ‘woke’ men (several of whom are friends no longer) have been completely hysterical in their fear, or have prioritised virtue signalling to show that they ‘care’. No doubt the ‘woke’ would say that I was ‘really’ a man, or perhaps I’ve just spent too much time with farmers, but none of… Read more »

RW
RW
5 years ago

There’s nothing interesting in another junk study demonstrating the prejudices of the people who conducted it. Why not use different hair colours to group people? That’s bound to result in some difference in different groups as well. Or what about shoe sizes? Or nose shapes, to include a classic in here as well.

The only sensible use such statistics can be put to is print them as hardcover edition and hit the authors on the head with it.

Annie
Annie
5 years ago

Here’s one woman who’s bucking the trend, then.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Annie

Yes indeed – and, of course, even on the basis of this unstable construction, most women do.

I don’t recommend innumeracy as basis for generalizations, even if the government are keen on cultivating mushrooms 🙂

PhilButton
PhilButton
5 years ago
Reply to  Annie

Good on you!

Anonymous
Anonymous
5 years ago

Incitement to hatred – do we really have to fall for nanny’s diversiveness every time? It’s designed to manipulate those that didn’t fall for project fear into violence so that nanny gets the excuse to hit us all even harder. I do not fit into any box, nor does anyone else, we’re persons, not clones or computers

DoctorCOxford
DoctorCOxford
5 years ago

Women are more risk averse as a population. When you survey investment risk for example, women are around 10% more risk averse. Women prefer safer cars. Evolutionarily speaking, this likely has to do with the need to protect children. As to compliance and desiring more government action, we have some data in other settings that women report more compliance with rules but behaviors (beyond Covid rules) tend to be within margins of being the same as men. But women back more government action across the spectrum from regulation to employment contracts (see the US Women’s Football team for an example).

This may also explain why mothers are opposed to vaccinating teens, given their low levels of risk and the unknown risks of vaccines longterm with kids.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago

I’m not sure this has much significance : “ gender differences were not huge:” or is particularly interesting in the great scheme of things Covid.

You certainly can’t draw any useful conclusions from the study. An interesting illustration of the difference between statistical and real-world significance.

SallyM
SallyM
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

I don’t think a 7-point difference is small.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  SallyM

I do. Particularly in terms of the nature of the research and the confidence range.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

… but I wouldn’t expect a finger Jerk to grasp that sort of issue.

kate
kate
5 years ago

I (a woman, obviously,) went on the three early antilockdown marches, and there were hardly any men to be seen! There was a massive disproportion of women.

It was quite a relief when the men finally turned up.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  kate

It could be that there are more anti lockdown men but the anti lockdown women are more likely to go on marches

Other than as a point of interest, I am not sure what purpose is served by this study or by DS covering it. Unless it reveals something about how we got here and how we get out of it – but I don’t think it does. I think we need to focus on character traits and arguments that appeal to those character traits.

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

It has no practical significance. Just a vehicle for disproportionate speculation and axe-grinding, I reckon.

Time to get back to fundamentals ….

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

The finger Jerks don’t really like rational scepticism. 🙂

Bluntly – these findings are of the same quality and marginality as studies used to justify masking.

Sauce for the goose …

RickH
RickH
5 years ago
Reply to  RickH

Note another feature of Jerk low intelligence – they never learn 🙂

john ball
john ball
5 years ago

from many London marches the spilt is remarkably 50/50, and the woman/young girls have been especially brave confronting the police

Al Jahom
Al Jahom
5 years ago

I was tarred, feathered and run out of town last year when I pointed out that this was likely to be true.

And lo, I was correct.

Women are at once natural authoritarians and natural conformists.

pan0
pan0
5 years ago
Reply to  Al Jahom

What utter bullshit.

snoozle
snoozle
5 years ago

I read in 2016 that if women only had voted in the states or men only then the election would have been a landslide one way or the other. I think that polling does show that women consistently are much more in favour of the state interfering to “help” people, at least in our societies.
So, I don’t think that it’s surprising to find that women poll this way. Anecdotally, most of the people that I know who are pro-lockdown are female. I don’t know many people who are pro-lockdown, but they’re almost all women. And the people who are obeying the rules that I know are mostly women as well. Obviously, not all, some of the most anti-lockdown people I know are women as well. Averages and aggregates are not representative of individuals.
Most of the people that I meet are anti-lockdown, but I fear that may be a biased sample because I only meet people who are not afraid to go out in public. The few pro-lockdown people that I know are friends that I know well enough to still communicate with even though they are hiding at home, so a pretty small sample set.

PoshPanic
PoshPanic
5 years ago

I’ve spoken to a few blokes that are completely lost causes, so go figure..

MizakeTheMizan
MizakeTheMizan
5 years ago

Women are consistently more likely to be public sector employees, and women are consistently more likely to be paid at home during lockdown.

Smelly Melly
Smelly Melly
5 years ago

Off topic, but is it me or is there less covid crap in the media and is this just the lull before the next covid shit storm?.

(Never ever trust or believe a politician. Question everything and if it’s from the festering gob of a politician doubly so).

RW
RW
5 years ago
Reply to  Smelly Melly

I’ve noticed this as well. I interpret this as generally good sign: Considering that COVID is pretty much a non-event on its own, the less media attention it gets, the less the result of that media attention will interfere with everybody’s lifes.

unmaskthetruth
unmaskthetruth
5 years ago

Sounds like more BS to try to divide everyone. Pretty much anyone you speak to for a bit is completely anti-lockdown. The pro-lockdown groups are extremely rare but media and polling companies have conspired to make us believe lockdown sceptics are in the minority. Don’t believe it for a second.

PoshPanic
PoshPanic
5 years ago
Reply to  unmaskthetruth

Nearly 50% of all posts on FB that relate to the vax, are antivax ( or misinformation apparently ).

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  unmaskthetruth

I don’t think the intention is to divide, more just to fill up space or possibly because it might illuminate how we got here and how we get out. But it might have the effect of dividing us.

Like all attempts to generalise about what side of the line people fall on, it will upset some and please others and as such I think it’s only worthwhile if it helps us to understand the pro-lockdown mindset and mechanisms a bit better. I’m not sure it does help much.

FWIW I expect the observation made is true – women are generally higher in agreeableness and agreeableness is a quality that the covid scam exploits very well. I’m male, but I am a white collar, work from home person with a nice house in a nice part of the country, to quote another post in this comments section. Unvaxxed and anti lockdown.

I should add that in my experience the media portrayal of levels of support for lockdown and vaxxing is not that inaccurate – most people I know are vaxxed and have bought into the covid narrative.

Deborah T
Deborah T
5 years ago

Yes, let’s hope that women here are not going to take this personally…it does say ‘more likely’. Obviously there will be lots of exceptions! (eg me!)

Deborah T
Deborah T
5 years ago

I also remember a study in the past that women care more than men about whether other people like them or not. All ties in…

Mark
Mark
5 years ago

“Women Are Consistently More Pro-Lockdown, Study Finds“
Interesting, but not particularly surprising to me, for the reasons I have set out.

What would be interesting would be the numbers on “vaccination”. I’d predict less of a tilt and possibly even a tilt the other way on that, though it’s harder to judge from experience because “vaccination” came later and attitudes were all mixed up with preexisting lockdown/mask attitudes.

But my feeling is that the slight tilt in favour of men resisting lockdowns was perhaps corrected when the issues became “vaccination”, and especially forced “vaccination” and “vaccination” of children.

SallyM
SallyM
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark

Doubt it: I think the same gender difference would be observed, i.e. women more pro-vaccine. In Australia there was some early survey data that purported to show that young women were the most vaccine-hesitant group in the community. As it has turned out the most vaccine-hesitant group, in terms of numbers not getting vaccinated, has been older men (in their 50s and 60s).

Mark
Mark
5 years ago
Reply to  SallyM

You might be right. But that’s one of the reasons it would be interesting to see the numbers….

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  Mark

I do know someone who is bought into the covid narrative but is not vaxxed. She’s pregnant. Aversion to risking the health of her unborn child overrode her otherwise strong tendency to go along with covid nonsense.

miketa1957
miketa1957
5 years ago
Reply to  Julian

Warn her not to get vaxxed just after birth. There is evidence that the spike protein gets into breast milk and does nasty things to the infants gut. Japanese study IIRC.

Julian
Julian
5 years ago
Reply to  miketa1957

Thanks
I will do that

Mark
Mark
5 years ago

“The finding that women are more pro-lockdown is somewhat surprising, given that COVID-19 appears to be more lethal for men.”

Not at all surprising for three reasons.

First, it’s what I’ve generally observed, though it’s also very obviously been a fairly weak effect. There are a lot of very strong lockdown resisters who are women, and there are lots of complete bedwetters who are men. But there does seem to be some tilt in the gender balance towards more women supporting.it than men.

Second, it’s what I’d have predicted, because women have always had this kind of slight tilt towards supporting nanny state attitudes and measures, which seems to make sense as a result of female roles and attitudes (generalised). Again, a relatively weak signal, with many great fighters for liberty being women and many of the worst nanny staters being men (partly perhaps because men have a strong tendency to try to signal political and social attitudes that they think will win female approval).

Third, the whole covid panic is based upon unreason and lying, manipulative propaganda. Why would anyone expect attitudes to correspond to reasoned analysis of risks in any aspect?

Thank you for reading. Please help us keep the Daily Sceptic going by becoming a donor.