One of the more enduring observations in the study of death penalty support within the United States is the strong divide between males and females. Men have consistently shown significantly higher levels of support for capital punishment than women. This divide between males and females has appeared in nearly every survey, over time, and across a variety of methodological designs. Using data from the cumulative (1972-2002) data file for the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) General Social Surveys, this study attempted to understand the basis for this gender gap. It examined gender differences in socioeconomic status, gender inequality, gender socialization, religion/religiosity, political ideology, positions on right-to-life and other social issues, fear of crime and victimization experience, experience with the criminal justice system, philosophies of punishment, and attribution styles. The findings revealed that the effect of gender on capital punishment support continued to be robust despite controlling for the effects of all of these explanations.
Among the various known correlates of death penalty support, one of the strongest and most persistent predictors has been respondent's gender (Bohm, 1991, Bohm, 1999 and Bohm, 2003). Men have been observed to be significantly more supportive of capital punishment than women. Bohm (1991) reported that the male-female difference in death penalty support (a mean difference of approximately twelve percentage points across the numerous Gallup polls) was greater than that observed for any other socio-demographic characteristic other than race. This finding has been so robust that it has been observed in nearly every public opinion and social scientific survey undertaken in this country over the past fifty years. Specifically, Lester (1998) reviewed over forty studies on gender and death penalty support and found that in the vast majority of these studies, especially those published since 1985, the mean level of support for capital punishment was significantly higher among males than females. Moreover, the gap between males and females with regard to capital punishment has been enduring. That is, male and female levels of death penalty support have almost always increased and decreased over time in the same direction, revealing nearly identical/parallel trends (Bohm, 1991). Finally, while there has been occasional evidence of a slight narrowing or widening of this gap, such variation was either idiosyncratic, or if systematic, has eluded empirical attempts at explanation (Applegate et al., 2002, Gault and Sabini, 2000, Hurwitz and Smithey, 1998, Leiber, 2000, Robbers, 2006 and Stack, 2000).
