Who Makes Better Leaders? The View from Southeast Europe's Rising Generation

Across the world, a consistent pattern is emerging: young men and women are drifting apart ideologically at an unprecedented pace. From the United States to South Korea, from Germany to Tunisia, researchers are documenting a widening gulf in political attitudes, social values, and worldviews between young men and women. What The Economist calls "the growing gulf between young men and women" and the Financial Times describes as "a new global gender divide" has become one of the defining social phenomena of our time.

Southeast Europe offers a unique laboratory to examine whether and how these global patterns manifest in post-transition societies. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation's Southeast EuropeYouth Study 2024, surveying nearly 9,000 young people aged 14-29 across twelve countries, provides an unprecedented opportunity to explore these questions. Are young men and women in this region experiencing similar ideological divergences? How do local histories, cultural contexts, and ongoing political transformations shape gender attitudes? What can this region—with its mix of EU members, candidate countries, and states navigating between East and West—teach us about the forces driving young people apart or together?

This is the first in a ten-part series examining these gender gaps through the lens of the Youth Study data. Each analysis will explore a different dimension of the gender divide—political leadership, employment attitudes, partnership expectations, tolerance and values, political participation, and more. Some will take a regional perspective, identifying patterns across Southeast Europe, while others will dive deep into country-specific dynamics revealed by unique national survey questions.

We begin with perhaps the most fundamental question about gender and power in democratic societies: attitudes toward women's political leadership. The data reveals that Southeast Europe is indeed experiencing its own version of the global gender divide.