This year marks the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, which provided American women a constitutional guarantee to the franchise. We assemble data from a variety of sources to document and explore trends in women’s political participation, issue preferences, and partisanship since that time. We show that in the early years following enfranchisement, women voted at much lower rates than men and held distinct issue preferences, despite splitting their votes across parties similarly to men. But by the dawn of the 21st century, women not only voted more than men, but also voted differently, systematically favoring the Democratic party. We find that the rise in women’s relative voter turnout largely reflects cross-cohort changes in voter participation and coincided with increasing rates of high school completion. By contrast, women’s relative shift toward the Democratic party permeates all cohorts and appears to owe more to changes in how parties have defined themselves than to changes in issue preferences. The findings suggest that a confluence of factors have led to the unique place women currently occupy in the American electorate, one where they are arguably capable of exerting more political influence than ever before.

中文翻译：

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美国女选民百年史：自妇女参选以来在政治参与，偏好和党派归属方面的性别差距

今年是第十九修正案的百周年纪念日，该修正案为美国妇女提供了对该特许经营权的宪法保障。自那时以来，我们从各种来源收集数据，以记录和探索妇女的政治参与，议题偏好和党派倾向的趋势。我们表明，在获得选举权后的最初几年，妇女的投票率比男性低得多，并且拥有不同的议题偏好，尽管他们在政党之间的投票方式与男性相似。但是到21世纪初，女性不仅比男性投票更多，而且投票方式也有所不同，系统地支持民主党。我们发现，女性相对投票人数的增加在很大程度上反映了跨群体的投票人数变化，并且与高中毕业率的上升同时发生。相比之下，妇女向民主党的相对转变渗透到所有人群中，似乎更多地归因于政党定义自己的方式的变化，而不是问题偏好的变化。研究结果表明，多种因素的融合导致女性目前在美国选民中占据独特的位置，可以说她们有能力比以往任何时候发挥更大的政治影响力。