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The Cost of Gendered Attitudes on a Female Candidate: Evidence from Google Trends

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  • Raphael Corbi

  • Pedro Picchetti

Abstract

How much can negative attitudes towards women affect voting for a female candidate on a major election? We measure gender animus by calculating a proxy based on Google search queries that include gender-charged language. Such approach likely elicits socially sensitive attitudes by limiting the concern of social censoring, circumventing usual difficulties associated with survey-based measurements. We compare the proxy to Hillary Clinton’s vote share in the presidential election of 2016, controlling for the vote share of the previous Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama. Our results indicate that a one standard deviation increase in our proxy is associated with a 2 percentage points relative loss for Hillary and suggest that online-based observable behavior can be useful for measuring different kinds of hard-to-measure social attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Raphael Corbi & Pedro Picchetti, 2020. "The Cost of Gendered Attitudes on a Female Candidate: Evidence from Google Trends," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2020_08, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    • Handle: RePEc:spa:wpaper:2020wpecon8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Stephens-Davidowitz, Seth, 2014. "The cost of racial animus on a black candidate: Evidence using Google search data," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 26-40.
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    Cited by:

    1. Gutiérrez, Antonio, 2023. "La brecha de género en el emprendimiento y la cultura emprendedora: Evidencia con Google Trends [Entrepreneurship gender gap and entrepreneurial culture: Evidence from Google Trends]," MPRA Paper 115876, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Ann L. Owen & Andrew Wei, 2024. "Hostile Sexism and the 2016 Presidential Election," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 50(3), pages 238-258, June.
    3. Matheus Pereira Libório & Petr Iakovlevitch Ekel & Carlos Augusto Paiva Martins, 2023. "Economic analysis through alternative data and big data techniques: what do they tell about Brazil?," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 1-16, January.
    4. Puhr, Harald & Müllner, Jakob, 2024. "Vox populi, vox dei: A concept and measure for grassroots socio-political risk using Google Trends," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(2).
    5. Forestra, Alessandra & Megalokonomou, Rigissa & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2026. "Crisis Narratives and Judicial Enforcement: Evidence from the Greek Fiscal Crisis," IZA Discussion Papers 18489, IZA Network @ LISER.
    6. Guzi, Martin & Mikula, Štěpán, 2021. "Careful what you say: The effect of manipulative information on the 2013 Czech presidential run-off election," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 209(C).
    7. Ann Owen & Andrew Wei, 2022. "Tweets, sexism, and the 2016 presidential election," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(1), pages 244-254.
    8. Alessandra Foresta & Rigissa Megalokonomou & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2026. "Crisis Narratives and Judicial Enforcement: Evidence from the Greek Fiscal Crisis," RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series 26088, ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin).

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J7 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination

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