International Women’s Day – March 8, 2015 – is a day to recognize the work that women do every day – both in the United States and around the world. We would like to pass on the following data from Porter Novelli’s 2014 Styles survey of 6,713 US adults to help spur conversation.
As the data shows, young women 18-34 in the United States are more likely than young millennial men 18-34 to have a grasp on their finances, to own a home, to be involved with their communities by donating their time and money to charity, and to see the importance of supporting international health and disaster relief efforts. Millennial women are also more likely than millennial men to support companies that they see doing charitable work.
But as the data also suggests, these same young women may be less inclined than older women to think supporting political candidates is important. In fact, young women 18-34 are only about half as likely likely to think supporting political candidates is important when compared to women 50+.
In a political world driven by donations, are young millennial women setting themselves up for the backseat of policy even if they are the ones making the good financial decisions today, engaging with their communities, and supporting the companies that do good work?
Other insights from Porter Novelli’s 2014 Styles survey:
- Millennial women more likely to support international health, disaster relief – but that support does not carry to politics:
- 47% of millennial women say that it is personally important for them to support disaster and emergency relief efforts, 7 points higher than millennial men.
- 35% of millennial women, and 28% of millennial men, say it is important to them personally to promote international health.
- Only 12% of millennial women, and 13% of millennial men, believe it is personally important to support a political candidate. That compares to nearly 1 in 5 women over 50 years old who say the same (19%).
When it comes to political donations, collaborative work by the Center for Responsive Politics, Rutgers, and re:gender has found a consistent 30 point gender gap in giving to candidates and outside groups in federal elections. (Executive summary here.)
- Millennial women are on more solid financial ground:
- 61% of women 18-34 years old say they are good at managing their money, compared to 57% of young men.
- 75% of women 18-34 years old say that they pay most of their bills on time, compared to 70% of young men.
- 23% of millennial women report owning a home or condo, compared to 21% of millennial men. This follows a trend of homeownership found by the National Association of Realtors and dating back to at least 2010; single women nearly double single men in new homeownership rates. In fact, single women accounted for 16% of new home purchases in 2014, single men accounted for just nine percent.
- Millennial women more likely to give time and money to charity (and to support companies that do the same):
- 58% of millennial women donated to charity in the previous year, 10 points higher than their male peers (of which 48% donated).
- 49% of millennial women volunteered last year, compared to 44% of their male peers.
- 43% of millennial women say they are more likely to support a company that does charitable work, compared to 30% of millennial men.
Styles 2014 Methodology
In 2014, Porter Novelli conducted all of consumer surveys via GfK’s KnowledgePanel®.
KnowledgePanel® is the only online panel that is representative of the entire U.S. population. Panel members are randomly recruited by probability-based sampling (using address-based sampling methods) to reach respondents regardless of whether or not they have landline phones or Internet access. If needed, households are provided with a laptop computer and access to the Internet. The panel is continuously replenished and maintains approximately 55,000 panelists.
The adult data are weighted using 9 factors: Gender, age, household income, race/ethnicity, household size, education, census region, metro status, and prior Internet access. The weights are designed to weight the data to match U.S. Current Population Survey (CPS) proportions.
Contact: Rebecca Mark; [email protected]; 202-973-1371