RIVERSIDE – (INT) - The list of women who have thrown their hats into the ring for the 2020 presidential election continues to grow. But, if one takes the top prize, what would the post-election look like?

A team of three political scientists, Including UC Riverside, compared the approval ratings of more than 150 male and female presidents in 20 Latin American and Asian democracies. They wanted to find out if the public supports male and female presidents similarly?

They concluded that female presidents are decidedly less popular than their male counterparts upon entering office. Those women experience shorter “honeymoons” before their approval ratings begin to dip, and their ratings suffer steeper declines over the course of their terms in office.

Results of the analysis confirmed the researchers’ theory that “female presidents are, generally, viewed with a more critical eye than male leaders and their popular support suffers in return,” they wrote.

The study demonstrated that female presidents are less popular on average than their male counterparts; additionally, its results suggested that perceived weakness in key issue areas led to more pronounced downturns in approval ratings for female presidents.

Story Date: February 26, 2019