McCain Leads Where Gender Gaps Are Bigger

Sarah Palin supporters express enthusiasm for a woman with a handful of children, including an infant with disabilities, balancing motherhood with a high pressure, more-than-full-time job. But that forward thinking -- which has a slight feeling of protesting too much -- is belied by the red-blue facts on the ground. McCain's lead is heavily concentrated in the states where women's employment rates are relatively low.

I took the current polling status for each state from Real Clear Politics, and combined that with the gender gap in employment rates for adults from the 2000 Census. In the 35 states with election poll results available, the median gender gap was just less than 13 percentage points, meaning half the states had bigger gaps and half had smaller. When I split the states into those above the median and those below, I found that eight out of nine of McCain's "solid" states have larger-than-average gender gaps in employment. On the other hand, four of six of Obama's "solid" states are in the small gender-gap category.

The difference in employment rates between men and women is just one indicator of women's overall level of empowerment, but it's not bad as a measure of the status of men versus women.

Maybe the Palin wave, inspiring women to become champion dog racers while their husbands are at work, will carry McCain's support into those states where men and women have more equality in employment. Up till now, though, McCain's message hasn't crossed that barrier effectively.

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