research questions gender

How to Ask Gender Questions in Online Surveys (With Examples)

The first questions about a person's sex appeared in the 1790 US Census. In recent years, researchers have increasingly asked questions about gender and sex separately to increase accuracy and promote inclusivity. In fact, in 2020, around 55% of such survey questions included three or more gender answer options, as opposed to the 80% that only offered two options ten years ago ( State of Surveys Report: 2023 ).

Researchers have not yet agreed on the "correct" way to ask gender questions in online surveys. Still, best practices are emerging to help ensure that sex and gender are not conflated and that survey measures accurately reflect the diversity of the population. 

Why Gender Questions Matter

Gender is a social construct shaped by society's cultural expectations and norms. It is affected by factors such as religion, language, family dynamics, and more. Unlike sex, which is assigned at birth based on physical characteristics, collecting information about gender more fully encompasses the socio-cultural and psychological experiences important to research projects.  

According to  Pew Research Center , "​​Gender affects how a person sees and is seen by the world. It's predictive of things like voting behavior, the wage gap and household responsibilities."

A note about terminology: sexual orientation is often referenced alongside gender questions, abbreviated as SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity). It is worth noting that sexual orientation is distinct from sex and gender. While you may see SOGI referenced in the context of gender questions below, the focus of this post remains limited to sex and gender questions.

Best Practices for Gender Questions

Gender questions are nuanced and require particular attention to context, verbiage, and placement. To properly conduct gender questions, researchers should follow guidelines such as using precise language, avoiding assumptions, and validating responses, as well as the additional best practices listed below.

Keep Sex and Gender Questions Separate

It is important to remember that sex and gender are separate concepts and require individual questions. Sexual characteristics are determined by the chromosomes and biological characteristics of a person. Thus, these questions are often simple and direct, for example:

What is your sex?

1. Male 2. Female 3. Intersex

Alternately, you may see this question phrased as "What sex were you assigned at birth?" In either case, you acknowledge the binary nature of asking a question about biological sex. 

Don't Ask for More Than You Need

Unless it is necessary to reach the survey objectives, questions about gender may be omitted. This is frequently true for B2B research and studies that already include sex in their standard demographic data collection.  Other gender-related questions, such as gender presentation (how you outwardly express your gender) or preferred pronouns, are frequently unnecessary and should be avoided unless relevant to your research objectives. 

Provide Write-In Options

Write-in options accommodate respondents who do not identify with the pre-defined gender choices. The wording of write-in options is critical to avoid confusion or a sense of judgment.  Examples of empowering write-in options include: 

• "I use a different term"
• "Prefer to self-describe"
• "A gender not listed here"

Examine Your Question Placement

It is common to group sex and gender questions with other demographic questions, but you may wish to group them with questions specific to your study. For example, in a study about access to health care, the gender questions could be grouped with questions about insurance coverage, while your question about sex is placed alongside questions about race and ethnicity.

Use Inclusive Language

The Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology (FCSM) 's  Updates on Terminology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Survey Measures  report acknowledges that when respondents do not see themselves represented in the categories offered, they have challenges responding. This lack of representation can result in lower levels of engagement and a reduced likelihood of survey completion.

When creating your list of potential answers, aim to strike a balance between inclusivity and survey usability. 

Pew Research  also notes that proponents of additional gender response options may perceive the lack of other options as exclusionary. This can be remedied by offering additional options in the choice set that are representative and inclusive of all voices. 

There are several common gender categories, including, but not limited to:

• Genderqueer or genderfluid
• Transgender man
• Transgender woman

Consider Opt-Outs

If balancing the survey, sex or gender demographic information will be required upfront. If you are not balancing, however, these questions can be asked at the end of the survey and made optional, or you can provide a "prefer not to share this information" answer choice.  The FCSM also cautions that while item nonresponse is relatively low for SOGI questions, even low rates for nonresponse can be problematic when measuring a small population. 

4 Examples of Inclusive Language in Gender Survey Questions

The use of inclusive language builds trust with survey participants. Although it is impossible to create a choice set for all gender options, it is feasible to use terminology that can be understood across most English-speaking countries to reflect LGBTQ+ identities.

Example #1: Very Inclusive Gender Question

The gender question above uses inclusive language, incorporating multiple gender identities while still keeping the response list manageable. Using a multi-select format allows participants to better align themselves with the answer options, including those with multiple gender identities. The write-in option provides space for identities outside the choice set, and a prefer not to say option allows participants to opt out of the question entirely. 

Pew Research Center  phrases their question precisely to ensure inclusivity: "Do you describe yourself as a man, a woman, or in some other way?" with a write-in option for the respondent to describe themselves. Pew views this verbiage as more inclusive than the binary responses of "male" and "female" and feels this phrasing more accurately captures data representative and inclusive of all types of voices. 

Example #2: Reasonably Inclusive Gender Question

The way this question is framed, responses are limited to a smaller choice set; however, there is a fill-in option to self-describe and an alternative to opt out of the question entirely. 

Example #3: Minimally Inclusive Gender Question

While this question does provide options beyond male and female, it offers a limited number of alternatives and fails to capture more nuanced gender demographics. 

Example #4: Non-Inclusive Gender Question

Gender options should not be treated as binary or lumped together as "other" without a write-in option. This is dismissive and marginalizing to people who identify as non-binary or have other gender identities.  Additionally, some people identify with multiple gender identities, such as female AND transgender or Male AND genderfluid. Without additional options or opportunities for write-in answers, the data collected is unlikely to represent the true characteristics of the population being studied. 

Testing and Iteration

When testing your overall standards, pay close attention to any sex or gender questions in your questionnaire.

If you can pilot test with a group of respondents, aim for diversity and ask about clarity, inclusiveness, and sensitivity. Use this feedback to make adjustments before fielding the survey.  

Use Cases: Gender Questions in Research

In the world of healthcare, Stanford University’s Gendered-Related Variables in Health Research states that medical evidence has shown that both sex and gender interact to influence health and disease. Analyzing the influence of gender on health requires tools that disaggregate these dimensions and quantify them. “Conflating birth sex and gender identity, however, can lower the precision of survey research.” 

The significance of gender in research is not limited to healthcare. Another Stanford case study, the Quality Urban Spaces: Gender Impact Assessment , showed the impact of gender data on city planners. By including gender questions in their surveys, city planners designing family-friendly streets and public spaces were able to understand who benefits from urban design and who is left out. 

Other study use cases include:

• Employee engagement
• Employee satisfaction
• Organizational culture
• Labor market studies
• City planning
• Customer surveys
• Consumer market research

Additional Resources

Below are a few resources you can browse if you are interested in learning more about sex and gender questions in online surveys:

• National Academies Science, Engineering, Medicine - Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation for the National Institutes of Health
• Williams Institute - Best Practices for Asking Questions to Identify Transgender and Other Gender Minority Respondents on Population-Based Surveys (GenIUSS)
• American Psychological Association - Inclusive Language Guidelines
• Vanderbilt University - How to Ask About Sexuality/Gender
• United Nations - Toolbox for Using Gender-Inclusive Language in English

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Asking Inclusive Questions About Gender: Phase 1

This is the first of two articles detailing the research experiments that Gallup undertook in its search to create a more inclusive question about gender that could be asked worldwide and across a broad range of surveys.

The first article focuses on the gender inclusive questions Gallup tested. In the second article, we will describe how we tested questions that can be used for gender research, including research or screening of gender minorities.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Gender is an important piece of demographic information that Gallup collects in its polls worldwide. Attitudes and experiences often differ in important ways by gender, and collecting this information is crucial to understanding people’s experiences.

Gallup has historically collected gender information in two categories: male and female. However, respondents who identify as nonbinary, transgender or another identity that does not conform to the male/female gender binary are not represented in these categories. This presents a challenge because it is important to offer respondents survey questions and response options that reflect their experiences.

Gender is also commonly used in post-stratification weighting adjustments and must be asked in a way that allows for calibration to weighting targets generated from government statistical systems (such as the U.S. Census). The 2020 Census asked, “What is your sex?” with the response options of male and female. Gender (collected in most Gallup surveys) and sex (asked on the U.S. Census) are often used interchangeably during weighting, which has historically presented little issue. But sex and gender are more complex than this.

In 2022, Gallup reported that 0.6% of adults identify as transgender , but this number differs significantly by generation. Less than 0.05% of Silent Generation adults identify as transgender, compared with 1.9% of adults from Generation Z. Generational changes in gender identity may fundamentally change how sex and gender are measured and how datasets are weighted to accurately reflect sex and gender.

To address these changes, Gallup began testing new gender questions. We reviewed the literature to explore how other surveys and statistical systems are collecting gender data. We used what we learned to construct our own question versions and conducted several rounds of testing.

In the first round of testing, Gallup experimentally tested three different gender questions. The primary objective of this phase was to create an inclusive gender question with an option(s) other than male or female.

We wrote the questions in the first round of testing with the following specific objectives in mind:

• The questions should be appropriate for global use, including in countries where it is illegal and potentially life threatening to outwardly identify as transgender or gender nonconforming.
• The question and response options should use terminology that is familiar and can broadly capture different gender identities. We understood that not everyone would agree on the best terminology and that terminology continues to evolve, but we wanted it to be as broadly inclusive as possible.
• Gender identity can be a divisive issue in the United States and many other countries. A version of the question should be used that does not increase item nonresponse or breakoffs from respondents who may object to a more inclusive gender identity question.
• The question should minimize issues with calibrating to weighting targets.

We tested three different versions of the question, in a web survey experiment of 36,131 U.S. adults, conducted Sept. 1-17, 2021, via the Gallup Panel. The question text was the same in all three versions; only the response options varied.

In the first version of the question, we added “Prefer not to say” to the "Male" and "Female" response options. The “Prefer not to say” response can serve many purposes. It can be interpreted as a refusal, which is an option if respondents are uncertain about how to categorize their gender, or it can be used as an option for people who do not identify as male or female.

What is your gender?

• Prefer not to say

In the second version, we added “Nonbinary” and “Gender not listed here” to the response options. We believed “Nonbinary” would be widely understood and accepted terminology. However, we added “Gender not listed here” to see how many people (who did not select male or female) would select something other than nonbinary. We intentionally chose to use “Gender not listed here” versus another phrasing, such as “Other,” which can convey “otherness.” However, we did not provide a text box so respondents could specify their gender.

• Gender not listed here (no text box provided for fill-in responses)

In the third version, we removed “Nonbinary” and added a text box after “Gender not listed here” to see what terms were most commonly used, unprompted.

• Gender not listed here (open-ended text box provided for fill-in response)

In each of the question versions, approximately 1.5% of respondents provided an answer other than male or female. In version 1, 1.4% of respondents selected “Prefer not to say,” compared with approximately 1.0% in version 2 who said the same (and in which respondents were able to select “Nonbinary” or “Gender not listed here”) and 1.2% in version 3 (which also had “Gender not listed here” but gave respondents the option of specifying their gender).

This seems to indicate that in version 1, respondents who do not identify as “Male” or “Female” may have used the “Prefer not to say” option. This question version could be useful for research topics or settings where gender is a sensitive question, such as in countries that criminalize people who are trans.

In version 2, 0.4% selected “Nonbinary,” and 0.1% selected “Gender not listed here,” compared with 0.4% who selected “Gender not listed here” in version 3.

In version 3, people who said, “Gender not listed here” were asked to type their gender. About 17% of the small number of write-in responses were a critique of the question or an invalid response and included answers such as “Only two genders” or “Master of the universe.” Another 10% wrote in either “Male” or “Female.” Of the valid answers provided, the most common response was "Nonbinary" (n=14), followed by "Agender" (n=3), "Gender-fluid" (n=3), "Trans/Transgender" (n=3), "Genderqueer" (n=1), "Noncis" (n=1), "Two-spirit" (n=1), "Demigirl" (n=1) and other answers that couldn’t be coded (n=3).

The combined results of versions 2 and 3 seem to indicate that “Nonbinary” is the most broadly accepted term, if only one term is used in the question. For most research, we do not recommend adopting an open-ended response option. Many of the responses were a critique of the question versus a valid response option, and coding open-ended response options can be a burden on resources.

Conclusions

Based on the results of this experiment, Gallup is most commonly using the following question for U.S.-based public opinion polling of adults:

For much of this research, the primary objective is to provide respondents with inclusive response options. We recognize that people have diverse identities and experiences, and people who do not identify as a man or woman cannot be treated as a homogenous group. For most public polling projects, sample sizes are not large enough to report the diversity of gender experiences. For these types of studies, a broad category such as nonbinary may be suitable.

Some researchers are concerned that more inclusive response options may turn off respondents who reject the idea that there are more than two genders. Although there were some critical responses to the open-ended question, 99.9% of respondents answered the question without incident.

The “Prefer not to answer” option was used in all the question versions. There is evidence that this option could prove useful in countries or settings where gender is a highly sensitive topic. However, our experiment does not give us clear information about the various motivations for selecting this response. Some individuals may have selected it when they could not find an appropriate category, while others may have used it as the equivalent of a refusal.

Gallup is continuing to research how gender and gender experiences are measured on survey questions. The second blog about this research will be shared in summer 2023 and will explore questions that can be used for accurately capturing or screening the diversity of gender experiences.

To stay up to date with the latest Gallup News insights and updates, follow us on Twitter .

Jenny Marlar, Ph.D., is Director of Survey Research at Gallup.

Survey Methods

Results are based on a Gallup Panel web survey conducted Sept. 1-17, 2021, with a sample of 36,131 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The Gallup Panel is a probability-based panel of U.S. adults who are randomly selected using address-based sampling methodology. Gallup also recruits using random-digit-dial phone interviews that cover landline and cellphones. For results based on the sample of each experimental group (approximate sample size = 12,000 per group), the margin of sampling error is ±0.9 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

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May 10, 2023 Gallup https://news.gallup.com/opinion/methodology/505664/asking-inclusive-questions-gender-phase.aspx Gallup World Headquarters, 901 F Street, Washington, D.C., 20001, U.S.A +1 202.715.3030

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How to ask survey questions on sexual orientation and gender identity

According to our 2023 State of Surveys research , the way people ask about gender in surveys has drastically changed over the past decade. This isn’t just a sign of the times in the US and around the world —it’s also a great guide for how (and why!) to stay adaptable when asking questions about sexual orientation and gender identity. (Or as survey researchers refer to them, SOGI questions.) 

Want to make sure you’re asking SOGI questions well? And that you’re approaching these potentially sensitive topics in a thoughtful and open-minded way? We can help. Keep reading for best practices and key research.

Surveys are becoming increasingly gender-inclusive

One of the most revealing findings from our 2023 State of Surveys report revolved around gender inclusivity. Ten years ago, more than 80% of survey questions only offered two gender answer options. In 2020, roughly 55% included three or more options. By 2022, the number of surveys offering three or more options increased to 64%. We predict that this percentage will grow in 2023 and beyond, as attitudes about gender identity continue to evolve. 

A major takeaway here is that identity-based language is constantly changing, but making sure your surveys keep up isn’t hard. As the State of Surveys shows, it simply means staying flexible with your answer options and leaving room for people to choose how they want to identify. 

SOGI questions may be less sensitive than you think 

Worried that asking questions about sexual orientation or gender identity won’t go over well with your respondents? Here’s some research to help ease your fears. In 2017, researchers at the Census Bureau conducted an experiment to see whether respondents were more likely to skip SOGI questions than other typical demographic questions . They didn’t find evidence for that at all; in fact, significantly more people skipped the question about income compared to the question on sexual identity.

This holds up with more recent research, too. Current federal statistical surveys collecting SOGI data show that “respondents are unlikely to skip SOGI questions (low item nonresponse), especially compared to other sensitive data items.”

This research indicates that people are willing to answer personal SOGI questions—so let’s talk about how best to ask them.

7 tips for asking about sexual orientation and gender identity

Use inclusive language and survey design.

The State of Surveys report found that 2021 was the first time that the number of gender survey questions that included “non-binary” as an answer option (17%) overtook the number that included “other” as an option (13%). While the frequency of the “other” options remained the same in 2022, “non-binary” continued to climb to 21%. 

Labels matter, and good SOGI questions use inclusive language . They should also be designed to affirm someone’s identity rather than limit it. Let’s look at two versions of the same question:

• Please select your sexual orientation. 
• Which of the following best represents your sexual orientation?

The first assumes that the answer is available to select. If a “fill in the blank” answer option isn’t available, this question could feel very restrictive—not a great experience for your respondents. In contrast, the second version of this question is basically asking the respondent how they most closely identify rather than making them select a definitive label. While we’d still recommend a “fill in the blank” answer option here, the wording of the question is more flexible than the first version and may lay the groundwork for a more inclusive survey experience . 

Include self-describe answer options

We really can’t overstate the power of those “fill in the blank” answer options. If respondents don’t see an answer option that suits them, a comment field will empower them to describe their gender or sexual orientation in a way that’s authentic to them.

And the self-describe answers you receive may even give you new insight on what to ask in future surveys. Just be aware that some people may choose to identify using terms that were or are derogatory, as a way of reclaiming the meaning. Learn from those responses, but leave those terms to those community members.

Don’t combine sexual orientation and gender identity questions

For many years, the Gallup tracking survey asked this yes/no question: “Do you personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?” While this may have provided a broad estimate of LGBTQ+ individuals, it systematically overlooked the people who identified as both straight and transgender. 

It’s important to avoid asking about sexual orientation and gender identity within a single question—this would be considered a double-barreled question and it’s a big survey no-no. Not only is it entirely possible that these identities are completely unrelated, but you risk muddying your data and making respondents feel misgendered or disrespected. For the Gallup survey question, the better approach would be to separate out the question on transgender identity like this:  

Use skip logic to tailor the survey experience

When building an inclusive survey, skip logic can be an especially helpful tool. Let’s say, for instance, that a survey asks respondents to specify their gender identity. If they select “non-binary,” and are then asked something specifically about male or female identity, they might feel ignored or unwelcome. With skip logic, you can send respondents past any irrelevant questions and create a more personalized survey experience all around.

Include context when asking about gender and sexual identity

A little context can go a long way with SOGI questions. Try starting any questions about identity with a phrase such as “For demographic purposes…” and be upfront about the goals of your survey. Are you an HR director looking to uncover whether LGBTQ+ employees need more support? Are you conducting market research to better understand your brand’s audience? When you explain why you’re asking a SOGI question, it can help reassure respondents and boost your response rate.

Explain how data will be protected

Speaking of context, it’s always a good idea to be transparent about how SOGI data will be protected. Even the recent Federal Evidence Agenda on LGBTQI+ Equity included guidelines to safeguard individual privacy in SOGI data collection.

If you’ve built an anonymous survey , say so! (Your survey introduction is a great opportunity to do this.) This will help your respondents feel confident that their answers will not be used to identify them or in any other way that might harm them, such as “outing” them. 

Recognize how personally identifiable information may affect other answers

Let’s say a company is creating an anonymous employee engagement survey. If there’s only one openly transgender sales rep at the organization, that person may feel that by answering a gender identity question, they are exposing themselves and their “anonymous” survey responses. 

One way to avoid this is by putting yourself in the shoes of the survey respondent, then considering if any of the questions may potentially identify them. A simple fix might be to include a “Prefer not to say” answer option or make certain questions optional. But no matter what, you should take some time to recognize the ways that potentially identifiable information could impact your results and the respondent experience.

When should you not ask SOGI questions?

So we’ve just made a fine case for asking about sexual orientation and gender identity and given you tips to do it well. But here’s the thing: There might still be a valid reason for not asking a SOGI question.

These questions are very personal and if you aren’t planning on actually using the data, you can’t really justify asking the question. This is true of every question that you include in a survey, but it’s particularly important for sensitive demographic items. The Human Rights Campaign has more advice on when and how you should think about LGBTQ+ demographic questions, along with some examples.

Even if you have plans for the data, you should stop to consider whether you’ll be restricted by sample size issues or logistics. For example, we weight all of our SurveyMonkey polls to demographic characteristics from the US Census Bureau so that our results are representative of the national population. The Census Bureau’s respondents have to identify as either male or female, which affects our weighting when it comes to respondents’ gender. (We look forward to the day when the Census answer options are updated!) This goes to show that there are times when approaching gender in a binary way is unavoidable—but it’s best to be really mindful about it and limit when and how you do it.  

If it’s important for your survey data, you shouldn’t shy away from asking SOGI questions. Remember, if you ever have doubts about how to approach these questions, the SurveyMonkey Question Bank is a great resource. It covers many tricky topics—including sexual orientation and gender identity, religion , race and ethnicity—and all questions are written and certified by our survey experts. 

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Gender Survey Questions For Questionnaires

Understanding different genders’ unique viewpoints and experiences is critical for businesses, researchers, and organizations in the modern age. When conducting surveys or questionnaires, it is critical to include gender survey questions that are respectful, inclusive, and yield meaningful insights. 

In this blog, we will discuss the significance of gender questionnaires and give you a strategy for creating inclusive and effective gender questionnaires.

Content Index

What is the gender survey question?

Importance of gender survey questions in a questionnaire, why is there a need for more than two gender options in a questionnaire, transgender is an important category now, best practices for asking gender questions in a questionnaire.

Gender survey questions are a questionnaire that is asked of a participant to understand what is the gender of the respondent. 

Analysis of the survey responses and considering gender as a parameter will enable a researcher to evaluate how gender plays a role in the participant’s choices and help him deduce a pattern. 

Gender questionnaire questions are used in various types of research, such as business, social science research, etc. A survey question is one of the various types of survey questions that are most commonly asked in surveys.

Previously, only male and female options used to appear in such questions. However, with so many policies coming into place and with people accepting their genders freely, there are many more options. Gender questionnaire questions are sensitive. However, these can enable the researcher to analyze their data more accurately in their questionnaires .

With the growing importance of gender equality, it is important to phrase these questions in such a way that they do not offend any participants and provide a sense of inclusiveness to all gender categories.

A good survey design means it will accomplish two things: accuracy and inclusiveness. A questionnaire has to be designed so that it can collect accurate data using the best practices for survey designs and be inclusive at the same time. 

The questionnaire’s objective should be to make the participant feel that their opinion matters and will be valued as much as any other participant, without any biases.

LEARN ABOUT: Conformity Bias

The old method, where the gender questionnaire provided only two options, namely male and female, suggests that everyone falls under only these two categories, which is against the two things mentioned above. 

It suggests discrimination against transgender and non-conforming respondents, and many times the results achieved will not be accurate as there was no option given to the respondent. However, using a five-category question or a multi-step approach for gender data allows the participant to choose from various categories and also has the freedom to write an open-ended response. 

Such an option provides the researcher with much more accurate data and makes the respondent feel valued and respected. Furthermore, it will also increase the response rate for the questionnaire because the participant does not feel he is forced to answer certain questions, especially if they are private.

While conducting a survey, it doesn’t hurt to know your survey respondents a little more, like their age, sex, gender, etc. Questions based on gender have a precious impact on the results. It will enable you to derive results and study behavioral patterns according to gender and to make wise decisions for the purpose you are conducting your research. 

Asking gender questions enables you to ensure that your sample is representative or to study the gender effects on your research. Thus, using the age-old methods of asking gender questions of two options, if not altered, will keep giving you statistical data, which is not accurate, skipping important variations of responses based on gender and limiting understanding of the research .

Today’s social science research , public issues regarding gender discrimination, the rising consciousness of gender equality, and the movements around the world elucidate that giving two options or categorizing humans into two categories is outdated and ethically wrong.

Furthermore, considering the purpose of the survey, the analyses can be much more accurate if the demographic questions can be segmented into more than two categories.

For example, A cosmetic brand wants to survey to gather feedback about one of their products to help them market their product appropriately, depending on the audience. The feedback from a male will be different than that of a female. 

Furthermore, other categories, such as transgender, will also have a different opinion about the product and are also a considerable target audience for the cosmetic brand. 

Hence, a survey including gender questions having multiple choice options will give the company much more accurate data and make it easier to segment its audience and carry out appropriate marketing strategies based on the gender of the participants.

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In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of transgenders, and they accommodate a significant portion of the population now. 

According to a 2016 study conducted in the United States, it was observed that 0.6% of all adults, or about 1.4 million people identify as transgender. So, on average, it is wise to expect that if a survey is sent to 500 participants, there will be at least 3 transgenders among them. Also, some states in the US have a higher density of transgender than 0.6%.

Furthermore, it has also been proven that transgender is not a trait you get once you are an adult, but it is a deeply held identity right from childhood. Hence, addressing transgender in gender questionnaire is vital to get accurate demographic information without offending the participants and also showcases non-discrimination.

Furthermore, multiple gender categories are evolving; hence, we can see many survey designers trying to implement these in their surveys. With so many options, it has become difficult for survey researchers to understand the need to collect valuable demographic data and balance it with appropriate gender choices. 

Although, while wording the question, a researcher has to ensure not to offend the participant and be respectful.

Following is an example of the number of choices that can be given in a gender choice question:

• Young woman
• Agender (no gender identity)
• Androgynous (not one specific sex)
• Gender fluid (different genders at different times)
• Bigender (two gender identities)
• Demi girl (partly girl)
• Demiboy (partly boy)
• Non-binary (not male or female)
• Genderqueer (non-traditional gender distinction)
• Trigender (shifts in three genders)
• Intersex (physical, hormonal, or genetic features of male
• Rather not say
• Other (please specify)

Considering the long list of genders accepted in today’s world, it is difficult to understand which have to be included and which are not. 

Although inclusivity of all options is vital, certainly, you cannot use the entire list, as surveys cannot be monotonous or exhaustive and should not take much time for the participant.

Moreover, you have a legal obligation to collect only the needed information. 

With data collection compliances (GDPR) coming into place, there will be tighter regulations to handle sensitive personal information. To understand when, how, and why to use a gender question for a questionnaire, you need to ask the following questions to yourself before designing a survey .

• Is there a need to ask the question at all?
• Should I ask about orientation and gender identity?
• How do I word my question?
• Does asking the question provide any business value?

One major confusion many people face is understanding the distinction between sex, sexual orientation, and gender. A researcher has to make sure the three questions are addressed separately. The distinction between these three points is as follows:

This refers to the anatomical characteristic of a person. When asking these questions, you should use options such as Male, Female, and Intersex.

Gender identity refers to what the person feels he is in a psychological sense, regardless of what sex a person was assigned at birth. 

Sexual orientation questions

This refers to emotional, physical, and sexual attraction to other people and does not fall under the gender question category but is affiliated with it. Words like gay/lesbian, bisexual/pansexual, and heterosexual can be used to discuss sexual preference. Please note it is advised not to use homosexual as it is frowned upon by most people.

There are many ways a gender identity question can be worded to suit specific needs. A couple of approaches can be used to ask current gender identity questions in a survey.

1st approach

If you find there is a need to ask a gender question, the following can be used.

• Others (Please specify)
• Other (Please specify)
• Not applicable

Using this approach enables a researcher to include transgender categories and also gives enough importance to mention any other gender identity. 

Moreover, using a multi-step approach is much faster to complete for a participant than using a single-step approach. Furthermore, adding ‘rather not say’ gives the participant a feeling that this is voluntary and not a forced question, which can give a good response rate for the survey.

2nd approach

If needed, an open-ended question can be asked.

• Gender?_____________

You may need to conduct text analysis for such a question; however, it is all-inclusive and will allow the participant to choose their own identity.

Apart from the decision to choose the approach, there are a few points that a researcher should not forget while using gender questions in a questionnaire. The following points will help you create a good survey design .

• Make sure you can justify why you are asking the question.
• Take into account the privacy and comfort of your participant over anything else.
• Maintain data security.
• Maintain anonymity of personal data.
• Try and include open-ended questions to give enough freedom to explain who they are.
• All gender questions are optional.

Understanding and recognizing our varied cultures requires gender-related questions in questionnaires. We can better understand gender identity-related issues by conducting inclusive and comprehensive questionnaires. Remember to offer options for different identities and respect respondents’ wishes to withhold information. 

QuestionPro is a popular online survey platform offering various features and tools for designing and delivering surveys, including the ability to add gender survey questionnaires. You may use QuestionPro to create surveys that target gender-related themes and collect vital data. Let’s work toward a world where gender identity is celebrated and accepted.

LEARN MORE         SIGN UP FREE

Frequently Asking Questions

Woman, man, transgender, and non-binary are gender-category responses. Chromosomes, hormones, and secondary traits define sex. Male, female, and intersex are typical sex response options.

 Gender questions in surveys may reveal gender tendencies. The survey is affected by these gender-related questions. Gender-specific surveys are sometimes done.

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How to Ask the Right Gender Survey Questions on Sexual Orientation & Gender Identity

Aysha Muhammed

Last Updated: 24 June 2024

11 min read

Table Of Contents

• Introduction

What are Gender Survey Questions?

Why must you include more than two gender options in your survey, why should you ask gender in a survey, how do you ask about gender in a survey, 20+ gender survey questions to ask in a survey, tips for asking mindful gender survey questions.

• Gender survey questions: Best practices
• Mistakes to avoid
• How can SurveySparrow help?
• Wrapping Up

If someone requested you to fit into a precise criteria or box that doesn’t truly represent who you are, would you rather do so?

It’s essentially a big no, right? We’ve all felt the strain of trying to fit into predetermined boxes, classifications, and criteria of who we truly are.

On the same note, I was wondering how it would feel if there were not enough gender options each time we take a survey. In the wake of the ever-evolving gender spectrum, we’ve come a long way from being perplexed about identities, unlearning certain stereotypes, and accepting more inclusive things.

But why do gender questions matter, and where will they be useful?

Meanwhile, if you’re here for a set of gender survey questions, create a demographic or gender-based survey, jump into questions right below.

• 20+ Gender Survey Questions-Examples

Looking for an example gender survey template? I’ve got that figured out, too.

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Now to the basics.

One of the survey question types, a gender survey question, is used to gather the gender of a respondent. Although these questions are commonly employed in a demographic survey, they are also widely used in several other types of research, such as business, social science, etc.

Gender survey questions basically help the evaluators understand if and how the respondents’ gender affects the choices and assist in identifying patterns, if any. While “male” and “female” remained the only plausible choices among survey makers, it’s no longer the case today.

Case in point, with changing norms around gender identity, people no longer shy away from answering gender questions if they feel they’re relevant to the demographic survey.

(Related: The 10 Best Demographic Survey Questions You Need to Ask ) 

In a 2015 study, scholars Laurel Westbrook and Aliya Saperstein, in their “ New Categories Are Not Enough: Rethinking the Measurement of Sex and Gender in Social Surveys,” elaborate on the driving need to reflect on the diversity of gendered lives and better align survey measurement practice with contemporary gender theory.

In a more recent study by Pew Research Centre, four in ten (42%) U.S. adults demand that when they’re presented with a form that asks about their gender, it should include options other than “man” and “woman.”

These data only indicate the rising consciousness of gender inclusivity and the demand for improving data accuracy by means of accurate data representation. If you don’t move along this hyper-gendered world, your survey results will remain erased of essential dimensions and will perpetuate inequality.

Asking about gender in a survey can be important for several reasons:

• Data Accuracy and Representation : Understanding gender demographics helps accurately represent and understand the survey population. It ensures that the data reflects the diversity of the group being surveyed.
• Informed Decision-Making : Gender-specific data can inform policies, programs, and services that address specific needs or disparities among different gender groups.
• Research and Analysis : For research purposes, gender data can be crucial in studying trends, behaviors, or issues that may vary by gender.
• Inclusivity and Awareness : Including gender questions significantly beyond the binary options promotes inclusivity and raises awareness about gender diversity.

To ask about gender in a survey effectively and inclusively:

• Offer Multiple Options : Include diverse gender identities beyond the binary male/female. Options like non-binary, transgender, intersex, and an option for self-description can be included.
• Use Clear Language : Ensure the wording is clear and respectful. Avoid using technical terms or jargon that might not be very clear.
• Include a ‘Prefer Not to Say’ Option : This respects the privacy of respondents who may not wish to disclose their gender.
• Consider the Purpose : Only include gender questions if they’re relevant to the survey’s goals. Unnecessary questions about gender can be intrusive.
• Skip and Branch Logic : Implement skip and branch logic to tailor the survey experience. Skip logic allows respondents to bypass irrelevant questions based on gender selection, while branch logic presents tailored follow-up questions according to the chosen gender identity.
• Be Mindful of Privacy and Sensitivity : Recognize the personal nature of gender identity and ensure confidentiality and respectful data handling.

Remember, the approach should always be respectful and mindful of your respondents’ diverse experiences and identities.Now, let’s explore some of the examples of how you should curate questions based on gender.

As American University accurately puts it, “Often the questions are asked because we feel like they should be asked, or because we consider them ‘standard’ demographic questions, not because the data are necessary for cross-tabulation.”

But if you’re confident that gender is an important data point for your survey and want to explore the many ways in which you can add gender questions to your survey, here are some pointers to get started:

1. What is your gender?

• I prefer not to say
• Self Descriptive

2. What is your sex?

3. How do you identify your sexual orientation?

• Heterosexual (straight)
• Homosexual (gay/lesbian)
• Other (please specify)

4. What pronouns would you prefer to use?

5. How comfortable do you feel expressing your gender identity in public spaces?

• Very comfortable
• Somewhat comfortable
• Somewhat uncomfortable
• Very uncomfortable

6. Is your workplace/ school gender inclusive?

7. Have you faced gender discrimination or bullying in your school or workplace?

• Prefer not to say

8. How do you perceive societal attitudes toward non-binary individuals?

9. How confident are you to embrace your gender identity?

10. On a scale of 1-10, how comfortable and confident are you to discuss your gender identity at your workplace?

11. Have you ever had sex education at your school regarding gender identity and awareness?

12. Do you find it difficult to come out and embrace your gender identity?

13. Do you believe that your opinions on gender have changed over the past five years?

14. At what age did you become aware of your gender identity?

15. Are you aware of the LGBTQ+ Support organizations for Queer community?

16. Are there gender-neutral restrooms in your locality?

17. Are people around you generally supportive or understanding of Gender orientations?

18. What steps should society take to be more gender inclusive of diverse gender categories?

19. Please share any personal experiences related to your gender identity.

20. What is the biggest challenge facing individuals as they explore their gender identity?

• Use Inclusive Language : Provide options beyond the traditional male/female binary, such as non-binary, transgender, and an open-ended option for self-identification.
• Respect Privacy : Include an option like ‘Prefer not to say’ for those who wish to keep their gender identity private.
• Purpose of the Question : Ensure the gender question is relevant to the survey’s objectives and is asked to gather necessary information rather than out of curiosity.
• Confidentiality : Assure respondents that their information will be confidential and used responsibly.
• Avoid Assumptions : Do not make assumptions about the respondent based on gender identity.
• Clear Instructions : Provide clear instructions on answering the question, especially if using open-ended or multiple-choice formats.
• Sensitivity Training : Ensure that those analyzing the data are trained to understand gender diversity and the implications of gender-related data.
• Include Non-Binary Gender Options : Specifically acknowledge non-binary identities by providing a non-binary option. This recognizes and respects individuals who do not identify exclusively as male or female, ensuring their representation and inclusion in survey data.

Approaching gender survey questions: Best practices

Whatever gender options you have considered and then decided on using in your survey, you still need to ask these questions correctly to gain the most value from their use. Here are some pointers to consider in the process-

I understand why you’re asking about gender in the first place

Grasping the motive for asking the gender question is a crucial part of the process. Keep your target audience and data-analysis goal in mind while framing the questions.

Throughout the process, you’ll want to weigh in on your information needs and how your respondents will perceive the question. Enough said, you can safely skip these questions unless it is not needed for your data analysis.

If you decide to ask the question, remember to tread carefully

In all earnestness, gender is often a sensitive and misunderstood subject. That’s why it’s important to reflect and introspect on questions such as

• Why are you collecting this information?
• What is the business rationale behind asking about gender in this form?
• How will the information collected be utilized?
• Do you have any legal restrictions on collecting and storing this data?

You also want to be careful not to have it mangled loosely with often wrongly interchanged terms such as “sex” or “sexual orientation.” Doing this will enrage your respondents and force them to opt out of the survey instantly.

Mistakes to avoid while asking gender survey questions

“Do it less, and we have a problem; overdo it, and you’ll find yourself with a bigger problem at hand” is how we can best describe this use case. As much as inclusivity is indispensable, it should not happen at the cost of fatiguing your survey respondents.

On that note, here are gender survey questions to avoid:

• Giving too many options: The peril of over-asking is real. Creating a massive list of options will tire your respondents before you know it.
• Giving too few options: If the broader options weren’t bad enough, being a stickler for the binaries will also negatively affect you.

How can SurveySparrow help create a perfect gender survey questionnaire

To effectively use the SurveySparrow gender survey questionnaire:

• Customize questions to suit your specific survey goals, ensuring they are inclusive and respectful of all gender identities.
• To gather comprehensive data, utilize various question types offered by SurveySparrow, like multiple-choice or open-ended formats.
• Use SurveySparrow’s user-friendly design to create an engaging survey experience, potentially increasing response rates.
• Implement privacy features to ensure respondent confidentiality, which is especially for sensitive topics like gender identity.
• Analyze the data using SurveySparrow’s analytics tools to gain insights and inform decision-making processes.

Ask the right gender survey questions on gender identity and sexual orientation

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Wrapping up

Asking about gender in your survey isn’t always necessary. But sometimes, most times, when included, it contributes to the richness of data.

Now that more and more people are comfortable with their gender identity and sexual orientation, there has never been a better time to collect them. In fact, when researchers at the Census Bureau conducted an experiment asking respondents how they felt responding to the question on gender, nearly everyone(90%, to be exact) said they were comfortable answering them.

With a survey tool such as SurveySparrow, approaching gender survey questions is made easier than ever. With pre-made templates for every use case, versatile question types, and a conversational interface, you get to send out thoughtful surveys that resonate with your audience.

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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, & Intersex Life

How to ask about sexuality/gender, asking about sex, gender, or sexual orientation on a form, survey, or project.

When filling out forms, LGBTQ2S+ people are often forced to choose between limited options that do not include their identities. This lack of options is invalidating and makes it impossible for surveyors to collect accurate data.

Collecting demographic information in ways that are inclusive to all identities is a positive step for any organization to make toward greater accuracy and equity. This guide will offer a few specific ways to ask about gender and sexuality in ways that are respectful and inclusive. Definitions to all the terms on the survey lists can be found on our ‘ definitions ‘ page.

General Guidelines

Only ask about sex, gender, or sexuality when it is necessary. If you must ask, explain briefly to participants why the data is being collected, how it will be used, and how it will be protected. Identity information is routinely used to target LGBTQ2S+ people, so make sure they know that it won’t be used for discriminatory purposes. All questions regarding sex, gender, or sexuality should be optional.

Suggested wording for the beginning of the survey*:

This information is used for _________.

Only (name of office) will have access to this information.

Your responses will be kept private and secure (if the form is anonymous, please indicate that).

The information will not be used for a discriminatory purpose.

You can change this information in the future by __________.

Ask about each identity separately. Don’t combine all three categories into one question.

Please note: some identities that are less widely recognized, like stud and boi, have some fluidity between the concepts of gender and sexuality, depending on who claims them. These identities often originated in and are mainly used within communities of color. For form-creation purposes, ask about gender identity and sexual orientation separately, but be aware that some of the terms that respondents use may overlap concepts.

Be as inclusive as possible.

The most inclusive way to ask about sex, gender, or sexuality is to leave a blank option where participants can list their identities in their own words.

Alternatively, if that isn’t feasible, create a list of options that allows participants to select all identities that apply to them (for example, someone might select both “gay” and “same-gender-loving” as identities on a question about sexuality).

See more specific guidelines for asking about gender, sexuality, and sex assigned at birth below.

Asking about Gender

First, consider why you are asking about gender. Is this necessary demographic information to collect? It may be useful to collect gender identity data to supplement forms that only ask about sex assigned at birth.

If it isn’t necessary, consider not asking.

Second, make sure you’re not conflating gender (e.g. woman, genderqueer) with sex assigned at birth (male, female, intersex). For many people, sex assigned at birth does not align with gender. Explain to respondents how the information will be used, who will have access to it, and how it will be protected.

If you need to ask about gender, here are a couple of wording options:

Leave a blank space where the respondent can fill in their identity.

Example: Gender Identity __________________

When such an open-ended question is not possible, allow participants to select from a list with multiple options. Because a respondent’s gender may align with more than one of the listed identities (for example, someone may identify as a transgender woman), it is recommended that you either ask whether a respondent identifies as transgender in a separate question or include both “cisgender” and “transgender” in the listed gender identity options.

A. Do you identify as transgender?

__ Prefer not to disclose

B. Gender identity (select all that apply):

__ genderqueer or genderfluid

__ non-binary

__ questioning or unsure

__ two-spirit

__ prefer not to disclose

__ additional gender category/identity not listed (please specify below)

Gender Identity __________________

*Note: The identities listed are most common in North America. Many other gender identities exist and are recognized throughout the world.

When choosing which identities to include, consider the population of people you are surveying. Please visit our definitions page for questions about any of the terminology listed here. 

Depending on your needs, you may adapt the language and identities that you choose to list. For example, while it is not ideal, you can reasonably combine the terms ‘agender’, ‘genderqueer’, and ‘genderfluid’ for demographic information collection purposes.

If you are looking to find out more information about an individual responding to your survey, an exhaustive list of categories/identities is more inclusive. However, if you are looking to report out data from multiple respondents, more categories could potentially lead to smaller, less generalizable sample sizes.

If you have questions about inclusive wording on forms, surveys, or projects, please contact our  office. 

Asking about Sexual Orientation/Sexual Identity/Sexuality

Asking about sexual orientation respectfully is similar to asking about gender–consider why you are asking and how the information will be used.

Suggested wording:

Sexual Identity/Sexual Orientation ____________________________

or, when such an open-ended question is not possible:

Sexual Identity/Sexual Orientation (select all that apply):

__ aromantic

__ bisexual

__ pansexual

__ same-gender-loving

__ straight (heterosexual)

__ additional category/identity not listed (please specify below)

Sexual Identity/Sexual Orientation ______________________

*Note: The identities listed are most common in North America. Many other sexual identities exist and are recognized throughout the world. When choosing which identities to include, consider the population of people you are surveying. Please visit our definitions page for questions about any of the terminology listed here. 

Depending on the needs of your situation, you may adapt language or choose to combine certain categories. While it is not ideal, you can reasonably combine these terms for demographic information collection purposes:

asexual/aromantic

bisexual/pansexual/fluid

Asking about Sex Assigned at Birth

As is the case when asking about gender or sexuality, only ask about sex assigned at birth if it is relevant to your survey objectives (e.g. a medical form) and explain how the information will be used and protected.

Sex assigned at birth:

__ intersex

*This wording is based on “ Suggested Best Practices from the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals

Further resources on gender and sexuality data collection

American Institutes for Research LGBTQ Youth Page – “AIR is one of the world’s largest behavioral and social science research and evaluation organizations.”

The Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals – “a member-based organization working towards the liberation of LGBTQ people in higher education”

The Williams Institute – “the leading research center on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy”

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How to Write Gender Questions for a Survey

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Conducting research with an online survey platform like Alchemer gives you easier access to more people, but it requires asking demographic survey questions to understand the data. Sometimes you don’t need this data, other times it contributes a lot to the richness of your findings.

When it comes to demographic survey data, gender and age are two of the most commonly asked questions. These basics are genuinely useful for analysts to slice and dice information.

But the days of giving respondents only “Male” or “Female” as their gender options in surveys have long passed. Even if you’re not asking demographic survey questions for college students.

The challenge for current users of online survey software is to balance the need to collect actionable data with the importance of creating an inclusive range of gender choices. And do it all without risking survey fatigue.

We’re going to take a look at two extremes on this spectrum — basic binary gender options and a survey with 25 gender choices — so we can ultimately identify a gender choice question that provides useful data while being respectful of respondents.

Extreme #1: Too Many Gender Options

In January of 2016, The Sun reported that teenagers in the United Kingdom were given a list of 25 gender options in a Government-backed survey distributed by the Department of Education.

In a rebuttal of the survey and its larger goals, the Associate Editor of The Spectator , Toby Young, provided this full list of the options:

6. Young woman

7. Young man

8. Trans-girl – Someone who has or is currently transitioning from male to female.

9. Trans-boy – Someone who has or is currently transitioning from female to male.

10. Gender fluid – Those who have different gender identities at different times.

11. Agender – Those with no gender identity or a neutral identity.

12. Androgynous – Partly male and female. Not one specific sex.

13. Bi-gender – Those who experience two gender identities, either at the same time or swapping between the two. These can be male and female or other identities.

14. Non-binary – A blanket term to describe those who do not feel exclusively male or female.

15. Demi-boy – Someone whose identity is only partly male, regardless of their birth gender. They may or may not also identify as another gender.

16. Demi-girl – Someone whose identity is only partly female, regardless of their birth gender. They may or may not also identify as another gender.

17. Genderqueer – Those who don’t go along with traditional gender distinctions.

18. Gender nonconforming – Those who do not follow conventional ideas about how they should look or act based on their birth gender.

19. Tri-gender – Shifts between three genders, which could include male, female and genderless or another combination.

20. All genders – Someone who identifies as every possible gender option.

21. In the middle of boy and girl – An individual who identifies somewhere in between male and female.

22. Intersex – Someone with physical, genetic and hormonal features of a male and female.

23. Not sure

24. Rather not say

25. Others (please state)

While the survey has since been withdrawn (a spokesman said it was a draft that hadn’t been cleared by the commissioner), it reveals the perils of over-asking in your survey gender questions.

Inclusivity is vitally important, but survey best practices dictate that we also need to avoid fatiguing the people taking our surveys. Certainly a massive list of answer options like this one falls under the category of “highly fatiguing” questions.

Of course, the other extreme is not any better.

Extreme #2: Male or Female. Period.

If the broader argument for inclusivity doesn’t move you, consider that limiting your gender choices to the traditional binary may also have a negative impact on your survey’s data.

Stanford sociologist Aliya Saperstein reminds us that, “If the world is changing and [surveyors] are not changing the measures, it’s not clear that we’re getting the information we think we’re getting, even if we ask the same questions we always have.”

Sociology professor Laural Westbrook agrees: “We have been taking gender categories for granted for too long. It doesn’t help us better understand health disparities or income gaps or voting patterns to always divide the population into he’s and she’s.”

Clearly, continuing to ask the same questions the same way in perpetuity in the name of longitudinal research is not a useful way to maintain data integrity. Nonetheless, this problem persists throughout the survey, research, and feedback worlds – from government forms to SparkPeople.com surveys.

A.J. Walkley recently reported on the Huffington Post that a poll of fellow activists revealed a stunning lack of options in survey questions: “I was overwhelmed by stories of the lack of inclusion on forms they’ve been given to fill out from various institutions, including LGBT+ groups themselves.”

We can do better, and making your survey questions inclusive doesn’t have to destroy your data either.

Suggestions for More Inclusive Gender Survey Questions

There are really two parts to creating a positive experience around asking respondents to provide gender survey data:

• Determine why you’re asking about gender in the first place. If it’s not a crucial part of your data analysis plan, you may be able to eliminate the question altogether.
• I f you do decide to ask about gender, craft the question carefully. Be sure you don’t conflate biological sex and gender, and create a question that allows respondents to answer honestly and comfortably. We’ll give you some examples to help you get started.

When to Ask About Gender in Surveys

The Center for Diversity & Inclusion at American University suggests spending some time in introspection before asking about gender in a survey. The Human Rights Campaign echoes this sentiment, particularly when it comes to employers collecting demographic data about employees with employee satisfaction surveys and employee engagement surveys.

Consider these questions:

• Why is the survey collecting information around gender, sex, and/or sexual orientation?
• How will the information be used?
• Will the data be broken down by category or used for cross-tabulation?
• What is the business rationale for asking about gender on this particular form?
• How will the data be used, protected, or reported? What legal restrictions might there be on the collection or storage of demographic data, in the U.S. or globally?

American University reminds survey creators that, “Often the questions are asked because we feel like they should be asked, or because we consider them ‘standard’ demographic questions, not because the data are necessary for cross-tabulation.”

If you decide gender will be an important data point for your survey, make sure you follow these guidelines when designing the question.

Best Practices for Collecting Gender Data in Surveys

First and foremost, make sure you keep questions about sex, gender, and sexual orientation separate. This doesn’t mean that you need to collect data about all three, only that you make sure your questions address the category you’re actually interesting in.

These distinctions from American University’s Center for Diversity & Inclusion offer a useful guide:

Sex refers to the biological make up in terms of chromosomes, hormones, and primary and secondary sex characteristics. When asking about sex as a category, words like male, female and intersex should be used.

Gender identity refers to the internal/psychological sense of self, regardless of what sex a person was assigned at birth. When asking about gender as a category, words like woman, man, and trans* should be used.

Sexual orientation refers to a person’s emotional, physical, and sexual attraction to other people. When asking about sexual orientation as a category, words like gay/lesbian, bisexual/pansexual, and heterosexual should be used. Please note that homosexual is not recommended as it is often used in a pejorative tone.

Sample Gender Questions

These are some of the best options for collecting gender-related data. When choosing the one that’s right for you, keep your data analysis goals and respondents’ situations in mind. Remember, you want to balance your own need for information with the personal feelings of the people taking your survey.

Completely Open Ended Question:

Gender? ___________

You’ll have to do some open text analysis on these responses, but it makes it very easy for people to choose their own category.

Options for Cross Tabulation

If you know you need this data in set categories to aid in data analysis, you can still create respectful categories without overwhelming respondents.

We suggest a radio button question like this (although what works for your particular audience may differ slightly):

Note that the best way to phrase this question is something like, “To which gender identity do you most identify?” rather than simply, “Gender.”

The Importance of Gender Questions in Surveys

In their 2015 study, “New Categories Are Not Enough: Rethinking the Measurement of Sex and Gender in Social Surveys,” Saperstein and Westbrook drive home the importance of thinking critically about the way we ask about gender in our surveys:

“A hyper-gendered world of ‘males’ and ‘females,’ ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters,’ and ‘husbands’ and ‘wives’ shapes what we can see in survey data. If not altered, surveys will continue to reproduce statistical representations that erase important dimensions of variation and likely limit understanding of the processes that perpetuate social inequality.”

So please, choose your survey questions (and response options) wisely.

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• How to write gender questions in your surveys: Tips & examples

Ayşegül Nacu

In research and data collection, gender identification has grown in importance. Many survey writers still have difficulty properly writing questions on gender, though. Also, understanding distinct groups' needs, actions, and opinions largely depends on surveys. 

Poorly designed gender questions might result in erroneous or partial data that does not accurately reflect the whole range of gender identity. The best methods for formulating gender questions that are understandable, considerate, and inclusive of various gender identities will be covered in this article.

• Why do you need to be careful when writing and asking gender questions?

Since gender is a sensitive and private subject for many people, it is imperative to take caution when writing about and posing gender-related topics. Our cultural, social, and personal experiences can impact how we define ourselves . Beyond the superficial classifications of male and female, gender is a complex concept.

In addition to being unpleasant and insulting, using the wrong pronouns or making assumptions about someone's gender identity can cause them to feel rejected and alienated. It's crucial to respect each individual's gender identity and to refrain from inferring gender from someone's appearance, name, or any other trait.

What’s the difference between sex and gender?

While they are sometimes used interchangeably, the terms " sex " and " gender " identity relate to an individual's different aspects. This confusion can result in misconceptions and feed negative biases and stereotypes. We may try to create a culture that is more inclusive and tolerant by encouraging knowledge and education about the distinctions between sex and gender.

• The biological and physiological traits that distinguish males and females are referred to as “sex.” They consist of hormones, chromosomes, and reproductive organs. 
• Typically, a person's sex is determined by their reproductive system and the chromosomes their parents gave them. We can say that sex is assigned at birth . 

On the other hand, gender refers to the social and cultural roles, behaviors, expectations, and identities associated with the male and female genders. It includes a variety of qualities, like one's self-identification as male, female, or non-binary. Gender identity is an individual's internal perception of gender.

The difference between sex and gender

• Two ends of the spectrum: Mistakes to avoid in gender questions

There are two extremes on the gender spectrum that ought to be avoided while discussing them. Too many gender options are the first error to avoid. Using only two alternatives is another error to avoid when asking a question about a person's gender, though.

Adding too many options

While it's crucial to have a variety of gender-inclusive alternatives, having too many might be burdensome and confusing for participants. This may potentially result in inaccurate data and troublesome analysis . So, it's imperative to establish a balance between inclusivity and pragmatism.

Example: Which of the following gender identities do you most closely identify with? 

   a) Male

   b) Female

   c) Agender

   d) Transgender

   e) Androgyne

   f) Bigender

   g) Butch

   h) Cisgender

   i) Cishet

   j) Demigirl

   k) Demiboy

   l) Genderfluid

   m) Omnigender

   n) Polygender and pangender

   o) Other

Using only two options

Male and female, the two conventionally accepted gender binary alternatives, do not take into consideration the diversity of gender identity and may insult non-binary people. Non-binary and genderqueer alternatives are crucial for being inclusive and supportive of all gender identities. By not doing so, statistics may be distorted, and some groups may be underrepresented.

Example: What gender do you identify as?

• What to consider when writing gender questions?

Whether creating surveys, questionnaires, or any other type of data collection, the style of questions is critical, especially when it comes to gender. In order to avoid exclusion or bias towards any gender identity, asking questions regarding gender is a delicate topic that requires careful attention. It would be useful to add questions as options. Including options for gender identity can help promote awareness and education about the diversity of gender identities that exist.

• Consider the context: The context in which the gender question is being asked is essential to consider. For example, asking for gender on a job application may require different options than asking for gender in a survey about personal identity.
• Include open-ended questions: If the available alternatives do not adequately express the survey takers’ opinion on the gender-related topic, consider enabling them to type in their own response options.
• Avoid asking questions that aren't essential: It might be invasive and uncomfortable for respondents to be asked questions about their gender that aren't necessary for the data gathering.
• Use gender-neutral language: There are more aspects of gender than just male and female, and this situation demonstrates respect for people's gender identities. Regardless of a person's gender identification, this can help create a more friendly and tolerant environment (e.g., " they " or " them ").
• 5 Question examples about gender

We mentioned that it is critical to tackle gender issues with compassion and respect in order to ensure that all gender identities are appropriately portrayed. In this article, we have included 5 sample questions to give you a hint. 

1   - How would you describe your gender identity? (Single selection)

   c) Transgender

   d) Non-binary

   e) Genderqueer

   f) Other 

2   - What effects do you believe gender norms in society have had on your experiences? (Long text)

3   - How important is it to you that your friends and family use your preferred pronouns? (Single selection)

   a) Very important

   b) Important

   c) Not very important

   d) Not at all important

4   - What steps should be taken, in your opinion, to make society a more welcoming and equal place for people of all gender identities? (Multiple selection)

   a) By fostering knowledge of and sensitivity to the range of gender identities

   b) By promoting laws that defend and assist people with all gender identities

   c) By opposing detrimental gender preconceptions and conventions

   d) By offering assistance and resources to anyone who has encountered harassment or discrimination because of their gender identity

   e) Other

5   - On a scale between 1-5, how comfortable are you discussing issues related to gender with others? (Opinion scale)

• Wrapping it up

It is critical to recognize that gender is a nuanced and diverse aspect of identity and that questions should reflect this diversity and complexity. Since people's attitudes on gender continue to shift, survey researchers should explore new ways to pose gender-related questions that reflect the changing nature of gender identity and create greater understanding and inclusivity. 

With these guidelines and examples, survey designers can create gender-related questions that are both practical and inclusive, resulting in a better understanding of the needs and experiences of people of various gender identities.

Ayşegül is a content writer at forms.app and a full-time translation project manager. She enjoys scrapbooking, reading, and traveling. With expertise in survey questions and survey types, she brings a versatile skill set to her endeavors.

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How to Create Thoughtful & Inclusive Gender Survey Questions

Market Research Specialist

Emma David, a seasoned market research professional, specializes in employee engagement, survey administration, and data management. Her expertise in leveraging data for informed decisions has positively impacted several brands, enhancing their market position.

Have you ever felt the frustration of trying to fit yourself into a box that doesn’t quite capture who you are?

Now, imagine encountering this every time you take a survey. As society evolves to recognize the beautiful complexity of gender, our surveys need to evolve from the binary options of “male” & “female” too.

But why do gender survey questions matter?

Well, for one, having an accurate idea of your survey takers’ identities is essential if you want precise market research data. It also helps foster a more inclusive environment in workplaces and educational institutions, leading to a happier, more productive workforce.

In this blog, we’ll explore how to create questions that respect and acknowledge the diverse spectrum of gender identities, along with their pros, cons, and best practices.

How to Create a Survey Using ProProfs Survey Maker

What Are Gender Survey Questions?

Gender survey questions are tools used in surveys and questionnaires to collect information about a person’s gender identity. Unlike traditional questions that only offer “male” or “female” options, these questions are designed to be inclusive and reflect the diverse spectrum of gender identities.

They might include options like “non-binary,” “genderqueer,” and “prefer to self-describe,” allowing respondents to represent their gender accurately.

While commonly used in demographic surveys, gender questions are also used in various other research fields, such as business and social sciences. They help evaluators see how (or if) respondents’ gender might influence their choices and behaviors and make it easier to spot underlying patterns.

How to Ask About Gender in a Survey

In a survey, questions that make recipients feel seen and included can be powerful motivators to draw a response. A survey that generalizes genders under binary categories can discourage survey takers who don’t identify with any of the options from answering.

When asking about gender, being inclusive, respectful, and clear is key. Here’s how you can craft questions that resonate with everyone:

1. Use Inclusive Options : It’s crucial to recognize that gender is not limited to “male” and “female.” Including a broader range of options allows respondents to represent their identities accurately. Some additional options might include “non-binary,” “agender,” “genderqueer,” “genderfluid,” and “prefer to self-describe.” This inclusivity not only shows respect but also improves the accuracy of your data.

2. Provide an Open-Ended Option : Sometimes, predefined categories may not capture everyone’s identity. Including a “prefer to self-describe” option allows respondents to describe their gender in their own words. This flexibility ensures that everyone can express their true identity. 3. Respect Privacy : Gender identity is a personal matter, and not everyone may feel comfortable disclosing it. Including an option like “prefer not to say” allows respondents to skip the question if they choose, ensuring they don’t feel pressured to reveal personal information. 4. Be Clear and Sensitive : When framing your question, use respectful language and avoid assumptions about gender. Ensure that your question is easy to understand and considers the diverse experiences and identities of your respondents. 5. Explain Why : Provide context for why you’re asking about gender. This will help respondents understand the importance of the question and how their answers can impact the interpretation of the survey data.

Why Should You Ask Questions About Gender in a Survey?

According to a Pew Research Center survey , about 42% of Americans believe forms and online profiles should offer gender options beyond “man” and “woman” for those who don’t identify as either.

Source: Pew Research Center

This rising consciousness of inclusivity demands an accurate representation of survey takers for clearer, more accurate data.

Here’s a detailed list of all the reasons why offering diverse gender choices on forms is a crucial step:

• Inclusivity : By providing more gender options, you ensure that all respondents feel recognized and respected, which can lead to higher engagement and more accurate responses.
• Accurate Data Collection : Understanding the diverse gender identities of your respondents helps with more precise data analysis, helping to identify trends and patterns that might be overlooked with limited options.
• Better Decision-Making : For businesses, inclusive gender data can inform marketing strategies, product development, and customer service practices, ensuring they meet the needs of all customers.
• Social Awareness and Progress : Including diverse gender options in surveys raises awareness about gender diversity and supports the broader movement toward social acceptance and equality.
• Workplace Inclusivity : In organizational settings, understanding the gender diversity of employees can aid in creating more inclusive policies and a supportive work environment.

What Are the Pros and Cons of Using Gender Questions in Surveys?

While gender inclusivity in surveys comes with a lot of perks, it is not entirely devoid of shortcomings either. Let’s explore both in detail:

• Inclusivity and Representation : When you offer a range of gender options, everyone feels seen and respected. This can lead to more people participating and giving honest answers.
• Accurate Demographic Data : Knowing the diverse gender identities of your respondents helps you get a clearer picture and understand your audience better.
• Informed Decision-Making : For businesses and organizations, having inclusive gender data means you can tailor your products, marketing strategies, and customer service to meet the needs of all customers.
• Policy Development : Understanding gender diversity in your organization helps in crafting policies that create a supportive and inclusive environment for everyone.
• Social Awareness and Progress : Asking about gender diversity helps raise awareness and supports the movement toward greater acceptance and equality.
• Tailored Services : When you know more about the gender identities of your respondents, you can better design services and interventions that truly meet their needs.
• Privacy Concerns : Some people might feel uncomfortable sharing their gender identity, which could make them hesitant to complete the survey.
• Misinterpretation or Offense : If gender questions aren’t phrased thoughtfully, they can offend or confuse respondents, leading to skewed data.
• Complexity and Length : Adding more gender options can make the survey longer and more complex, potentially putting off some respondents.
• Data Sensitivity : Gathering gender data means you need to handle it carefully to protect confidentiality and privacy, which adds responsibility.
• Cultural Differences : In some regions or cultures, gender diversity might not be widely accepted or understood, which could lead to confusion or backlash.
• Potential Bias : If gender questions aren’t well-designed, they can introduce bias, affecting the accuracy and reliability of your data.

Best Practices for Asking Gender Questions in a Questionnaire

Gender is a sensitive topic for many, and knowing how to pose the questions without disrespecting respondents is key to getting accurate responses and increasing the survey completion rate. Here are some best practices to follow while crafting your questionnaire:

1. Use Inclusive Language :

• Ensure your options reflect a range of gender identities beyond “male” and “female.”
• Prefer to self-describe: __________
• Prefer not to say

2. Provide an Open-Ended Option :

• Allow respondents to describe their gender in their own words if they don’t identify with the listed options.
• Example: “Prefer to self-describe: __________”

3. Respect Privacy :

• Include an option for respondents who prefer not to disclose their gender.
• Example: “Prefer not to say”

4. Be Clear and Sensitive :

• Use respectful and non-assumptive language.
• Avoid terms or phrasing that might be confusing or offensive to respondents.

5. Explain the Purpose :

• If possible, explain why you are asking about gender. This transparency can help respondents understand the importance of the question.
• Example: “We ask about gender to ensure we are inclusive and to better understand the needs of all our participants.”

6. Position the Question Thoughtfully :

• Place the gender question in a logical position within the survey, such as alongside other demographic questions.
• Avoid placing it at the very beginning if you think it might cause discomfort.

7. Test Your Questions :

• Before finalizing the survey, test your gender question with a diverse group to ensure it is clear, inclusive, and respectful.
• Collect feedback and be open to making adjustments based on this feedback.

8. Avoid Mandatory Responses :

• Do not make the gender question mandatory, as this can make some respondents uncomfortable and lead to incomplete surveys.

9. Stay Updated :

• Gender identity language and best practices evolve. Regularly review and update your survey questions to stay current with inclusive terminology and practices.

10. Be Culturally Sensitive :

• Be aware of the cultural context of your respondents. In some cultures, gender diversity might be understood differently, and you may need to adjust your questions accordingly.

Gather Meaningful Data With Rightly Placed Gender Survey Questions

Gender questions in surveys aren’t just a box to tick—it’s about making sure everyone feels seen and respected. Inclusive gender options, open-ended responses, and privacy respect are crucial to making respondents comfortable and your data accurate.

Explain why you’re asking these questions, and place them thoughtfully in your survey. Keep your questions updated to reflect current language and cultural contexts.

Good gender questions mean better data, leading to smarter decisions and more inclusive policies. When you prioritize inclusivity, you create respectful and insightful surveys that benefit everyone involved.

If you are unsure where to start, a tool like ProProfs Survey Maker with an AI survey generator and readymade templates can be your best bet. You can automatically create a questionnaire, customize it with your questions and brand themes, and share it instantly wherever or however you like.

About the author

Emma David is a seasoned market research professional with 8+ years of experience. Having kick-started her journey in research, she has developed rich expertise in employee engagement, survey creation and administration, and data management. Emma believes in the power of data to shape business performance positively. She continues to help brands and businesses make strategic decisions and improve their market standing through her understanding of research methodologies.

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• Open access
• Published: 28 April 2020

The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation

• J. Chubb   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9716-820X 1 &
• G. E. Derrick   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5386-8653 2  

Palgrave Communications volume  6 , Article number:  72 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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• Science, technology and society

A Correction to this article was published on 19 May 2020

This article has been updated

Using an analysis of two independent, qualitative interview data sets: the first containing semi-structured interviews with mid-senior academics from across a range of disciplines at two research-intensive universities in Australia and the UK, collected between 2011 and 2013 ( n  = 51); and the second including pre- ( n  = 62), and post-evaluation ( n  = 57) interviews with UK REF2014 Main Panel A evaluators, this paper provides some of the first empirical work and the grounded uncovering of implicit (and in some cases explicit) gendered associations around impact generation and, by extension, its evaluation. In this paper, we explore the nature of gendered associations towards non-academic impact (Impact) generation and evaluation. The results suggest an underlying yet emergent gendered perception of Impact and its activities that is worthy of further research and exploration as the importance of valuing the ways in which research has an influence ‘beyond academia’ increases globally. In particular, it identifies how researchers perceive that there are some personality traits that are better orientated towards achieving Impact; how these may in fact be gendered. It also identifies how gender may play a role in the prioritisation of ‘hard’ Impacts (and research) that can be counted, in contrast to ‘soft’ Impacts (and research) that are far less quantifiable, reminiscent of deeper entrenched views about the value of different ‘modes’ of research. These orientations also translate to the evaluation of Impact, where panellists exhibit these tendencies prior to its evaluation and describe the organisation of panel work with respect to gender diversity.

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Introduction.

The management and measurement of the non-academic impact Footnote 1 (Impact) of research is a consistent theme within the higher education (HE) research environment in the UK, reflective of a drive from government for greater visibility of the benefits of research for the public, policy and commercial sectors (Chubb, 2017 ). This is this mirrored on a global scale, particularly in Australia, where, at the ‘vanguard’ (Upton et al., 2014 , p. 352) of these developments, methods were first devised (but were subsequently abandoned) to measure research impact (Chubb, 2017 ; Hazelkorn and Gibson, 2019 ). What is broadly known in both contexts as an ‘Impact Agenda’—the move to forecast and assess the ways in which investment in academic research delivers measurable socio-economic benefit—initially sparked broad debate and in some instances controversy, among the academic community (and beyond) upon its inception (Chubb, 2017 ). Since then, the debate has continued to evolve and the ways in which impact can be better conceptualised and implemented in the UK, including its role in evaluation (Stern, 2016 ), and more recently in grant applications (UKRI, 2020 ) is robustly debated. Notwithstanding attempts to better the culture of equality and diversity in research, (Stern, 2016 ; Nature, 2019 ) in the broader sense, and despite the implementation of the Impact agenda being studied extensively, there has been very little critical engagement with theories of gender and how this translates specifically to more downstream gendered inequities in HE such as through an impact agenda.

The emergence of Impact brought with it many connotations, many of which were largely negative; freedom was questioned, and autonomy was seen to be at threat because of an audit surveillance culture in HE (Lorenz, 2012 ). Resistance was largely characterised by problematising the agenda as symptomatic of the marketisation of knowledge threatening traditional academic norms and ideals (Merton, 1942 ; Williams, 2002 ) and has led to concern about how the Impact agenda is conceived, implemented and evaluated. This concern extends to perceptions of gendered assumptions about certain kinds of knowledge and related activities of which there is already a corpus of work, i.e., in the case of gender and forms of public engagement (Johnson et al., 2014 ; Crettaz Von Roten, 2011 ). This paper explores what it terms as ‘the Impact a-gender’ (Chubb, 2017 ) where gendered notions of non-academic, societal impact and how it is generated feed into its evaluation. It does not wed itself to any feminist tradition specifically, however, draws on Carey et al. ( 2018 ) to examine, acknowledge and therefore amend how the range of policies within HE and how implicit power dynamics in policymaking produce gender inequalities. Instead, an impact fluidity is encouraged and supported. For this paper, this means examining how the impact a-gender feeds into expectations and the reward of non-academic impact. If left unchecked, the propagation of the impact a-gender, it is argued, has the potential to guard against a greater proportion of women generating and influencing the use of research evidence in public policy decision-making.

Scholars continue to reflect on ‘science as a gendered endeavour’ (Amâncio, 2005 ). The extensive corpus of historical literature on gender in science and its originators (Merton, 1942 ; Keller et al., 1978 ; Kuhn, 1962 ), note the ‘pervasiveness’ of the ‘masculine’ and the ‘objective and the scientific’. Indeed, Amancio affirmed in more recent times that ‘modern science was born as an exclusively masculine activity’ ( 2005 ). The Impact agenda raises yet more obstacles indicative of this pervasiveness, which is documented by the ‘Matthew’/‘Matilda’ effect in Science (Merton, 1942 ; Rossiter, 1993 ). Perceptions of gender bias (which Kretschmer and Kretschmer, 2013 hypothesise as myths in evaluative cultures) persist with respect to how gender effects publishing, pay and reward and other evaluative issues in HE (Ward and Grant, 1996 ). Some have argued that scientists and institutions perpetuate such issues (Amâncio, 2005 ). Irrespective of their origin, perceptions of gendered Impact impede evaluative cultures within HE and, more broadly, the quest for equality in excellence in research impact beyond academia.

To borrow from Van Den Brink and Benschop ( 2012 ), gender is conceptualised as an integral part of organisational practices, situated within a social construction of feminism (Lorber, 2005 ; Poggio, 2006 ). This article uses the notion of gender differences and inequality to refer to the ‘ hierarchical distinction in which either women and femininity and men and masculinity are valued over the other ’ (p. 73), though this is not precluding of individual preferences. Indeed, there is an emerging body of work focused on gendered associations not only about ‘types’ of research and/or ‘areas and topics’ (Thelwall et al., 2019 ), but also about what is referred to as non-academic impact. This is with particular reference to audit cultures in HE such as the Research Excellence Framework (REF), which is the UK’s system of assessing the quality of research (Morley, 2003 ; Yarrow and Davies, 2018 ; Weinstein et al., 2019 ). While scholars have long attended to researching gender differences in relation to the marketisation of HE (Ahmed, 2006 ; Bank, 2011 ; Clegg, 2008 ; Gromkowska-Melosik, 2014 ; Leathwood et al., 2008 ), and the gendering of Impact activities such as outreach and public engagement (Ward and Grant, 1996 ), there is less understanding of how far academic perceptions of Impact are gendered. Further, how these gendered tensions influence panel culture in the evaluation of impact beyond academia is also not well understood. As a recent discussion in the Lancet read ‘ the causes of gender disparities are complex and include both distal and proximal factors ’. (Lundine et al., 2019 , p. 742).

This paper examines the ways in which researchers and research evaluators implicitly perceive gender as related to excellence in Impact both in its generation and in its evaluation. Using an analysis of two existing data sets; the pre-evaluation interviews of evaluators in the UK’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework and interviews with mid-senior career academics from across the range of disciplines with experience of building impact into funding applications and/ or its evaluation in two research-intensive universities in the UK and Australia between 2011 and 2013, this paper explores the implicitly gendered references expressed by our participants relating to the generation of non-academic, impact which emerged inductively through analysis. Both data sets comprise researcher perceptions of impact prior to being subjected to any formalised assessment of research Impact, thus allowing for the identification of unconscious gendered orientations that emerged from participant’s emotional and more abstract views about Impact. It notes how researchers use loaded terminology around ‘hard’, and ‘soft’ when conceptualising Impact that is reminiscent of long-standing associations between epistemological domains of research and notions of masculinity/femininity. It refers to ‘hard’ impact as those that are associated with meaning economic/ tangible and efficiently/ quantifiably evaluated, and ‘soft’ as denoting social, abstract, potentially qualitative or less easily and inefficiently evaluated. By extending this analysis to the gendered notions expressed by REF2014 panellists (expert reviewers whose responsibility it is to review the quality of the retrospective impact articulated in case studies for the purposes of research evaluation) towards the evaluation of Impact, this paper highlights how instead of challenging these tendencies, shared constructions of Impact and gendered productivity in academia act to amplify and embed these gendered notions within the evaluation outcomes and practice. It explores how vulnerable seemingly independent assessments of Impact are to these widespread gendered- associations between Impact, engagement and success. Specifically, perceptions of the excellence and judgements of feasibility relating to attribution, and causality within the narrative of the Impact case study become gendered.

The article is structured as follows. First, it reviews the gender-orientations towards notions of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ excellence in forms of scholarly distinction and explores how this relates to the REF Impact evaluation criteria, and the under-representation of women in the academic workforce. Specifically, it hypothesises the role of how gendered notions of excellence that construct academic identities contribute to a system that side-lines women in academia. This is despite associating the generation of Impact as a feminised skill. We label this as the ‘Impact a-gender’. The article then outlines the methodology and how the two, independent databases were combined and convergent themes developed. The results are then presented from academics in the UK and Australia and then from REF2014 panellists. This describes how the Impact a-gender currently operates through academic cultural orientations around Impact generation, and in its evaluation through peer-review panels by members of this same academic culture. The article concludes with a recommendation that the Impact a-gender be explored more thoroughly as a necessary step towards guiding against gender- bias in the academic evaluation, and reward system.

Literature review

Notions of impact excellence as ‘hard’ or ‘soft’.

Scholars have long attempted to consider the commonalities and differences across certain kinds of knowledge (Becher, 1989 , 1994 ; Biglan, 1973a ) and attempts to categorise, divide and harmonise the disciplines have been made (Biglan, 1973a , 1973b ; Becher, 1994 ; Caplan, 1979 ; Schommer–Aikins et al., 2003 ). Much of this was advanced with a typology of the disciplines from (Trowler, 2001 ), which categorised the disciplines as ‘hard’ or ‘soft’. Both anecdotally and in the literature, ‘soft’ science is associated with working more with people and less with ‘things’ (Cassell, 2002 ; Thelwall et al., 2019 ). These dichotomies often lead to a hierarchy of types of Impact and oppose valuation of activities based on their gendered connotations.

Biglan’s system of classifying disciplines into groups based on similarities and differences denotes particular behaviours or characteristics, which then form part of clusters or groups—‘pure’, ‘applied’, ‘soft’, ‘hard’ etc. Simpson ( 2017 ) argues that Biglan’s classification persists as one of the most commonly referred to models of the disciplines despite the prominence of some others (Pantin, 1968 ; Kuhn, 1962 ; Smart et al., 2000 ). Biglan ( 1973b ) classified the disciplines across three dimensions; hard and soft, pure and applied, life and non-life (whether the research is concerned with living things/organisms) . This ‘taxonomy of the disciplines’ states that ‘pure-hard’ domains tend toward the life and earth sciences,’pure-soft’ the social sciences and humanities, and ‘applied hard’ focus on engineering and physical science with ‘soft-applied’ tending toward professional practice such as nursing, medicine and education. Biglan’s classification looked at levels of social connectedness and specifically found that applied scholars Footnote 2 were more socially connected, more interested and involved in service activities, and more likely to publish in the form of technical reports than their counterparts in the pure (hard) areas of study. This resonates with how Impact brings renewed currency and academic prominence to applied researchers (Chubb, 2017 ). Historically, scholars inhabiting the ‘hard’ disciplines had a greater preference for research; whereas, scholars representing soft disciplines had a greater preference for teaching (Biglan, 1973b ). Further, Biglan ( 1973b ) also found that hard science scholars sought out greater collaborative efforts among colleagues when teaching as opposed to their soft science counterparts.

There are also long-standing gendered associations and connotations with notions of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ (Storer, 1967 ). Typically used to refer to skills, but also used heavily with respect to the disciplines and knowledge domains, gendered assumptions and the mere use of ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ to describe knowledge production carries with it assumptions, which are often noted in the literature; ‘ we think of physics as hard and of political science as soft ’, Storer explains, adding how ‘hard seems to imply tough, brittle, impenetrable and strong, while soft on the other hand calls to mind the qualities of weakness, gentleness and malleability’ (p. 76). As described, hard science is typically associated with the natural sciences and quantitative paradigms whereas normative perceptions of feminine ‘soft’ skills or ‘soft’ science are often equated with qualitative social science. Scholars continue to debate dichotomised paradigms or ‘types’ of research or knowledge (Gibbons, 1999 ), which is emblematic of an undercurrent of epistemological hierarchy of the value of different kinds of knowledge. Such debates date back to the heated back and forth between scholars Snow (Snow, 2012 ) and literary critic Leavis who argued for their own ‘cultures’ of knowledge. Notwithstanding, these binary distinctions do few favours when gender is then ascribed to either knowledge domain or related activity (Yarrow and Davies, 2018 ). This is particularly pertinent in light of the current drive for more interdisciplinary research in the science system where there is also a focus on fairness, equality and diversity in the science system.

Academic performance and the Impact a-gender

Audit culture in academia impacts unfairly on women (Morley, 2003 ), and is seen as contributory to the wide gender disparities in academia, including the under-representation of women as professors (Ellemers et al., 2004 ), in leadership positions (Carnes et al., 2015 ), in receiving research acknowledgements (Larivière et al., 2013 ; Sugimoto et al., 2015 ), or being disproportionately concentrated in non-research-intensive universities (Santos and Dang Van Phu, 2019 ). Whereas gender discrimination also manifests in other ways such as during peer review (Lee and Noh, 2013 ), promotion (Paulus et al., 2016 ), and teaching evaluations (Kogan et al., 2010 ), the proliferation of an audit culture links gender disparities in HE to processes that emphasise ‘quantitative’ analysis methods, statistics, measurement, the creation of ‘experts’, and the production of ‘hard evidence’. The assumption here is that academic performance and the metrics used to value, and evaluate it, are heavily gendered in a way that benefits men over women, reflecting current disparities within the HE workforce. Indeed, Morely (2003) suggests that the way in which teaching quality is female dominated and research quality is male dominated, leads to a morality of quality resulting in the larger proportion of women being responsible for student-focused services within HE. In addition, the notion of ‘excellence’ within these audit cultures implicitly reflect images of masculinity such as rationality, measurement, objectivity, control and competitiveness (Burkinshaw, 2015 ).

The association of feminine and masculine traits in academia (Holt and Ellis, 1998 ), and ‘gendering its forms of knowledge production’ (Clegg, 2008 ), is not new. In these typologies, women are largely expected to be soft-spoken, nurturing and understanding (Bellas, 1999 ) yet often invisible and supportive in their ‘institutional housekeeping’ roles (Bird et al., 2004 ). Men, on the other hand are often associated with being competitive, ambitious and independent (Baker, 2008 ). When an individual’s behaviour is perceived to transcend these gendered norms, then this has detrimental effects on how others evaluate their competence, although some traits displayed outside of these typologies go somewhat ‘under the radar’. Nonetheless, studies show that women who display leadership qualities (competitiveness, ambition and decisiveness) are characterised more negatively than men (Rausch, 1989 ; Heilman et al., 1995 ; Rossiter, 1993 ). Incongruity between perceptions of ‘likeability’ and ‘competence’ and its relationship to gender bias is present in evaluations in academia, where success is dependent on the perceptions of others and compounded within an audit culture (Yarrow and Davis, 2018). This has been seen in peer review, reports for men and women applicants, where women were disadvantaged by the same characteristics that were seen as a strength on proposals by men (Severin et al., 2019 ); as well as in teaching evaluations where women receive higher evaluations if they are perceived as ‘nurturing’ and ‘supportive’ (Kogan et al., 2010 ). This results in various potential forms of prejudice in academia: Where traits normally associated with masculinity are more highly valued than those associated with femininity (direct) or when behaviour that is generally perceived to be ‘masculine’ is enacted by a woman and then perceived less favourably (indirect/ unconscious). That is not to mention direct sexism, rather than ‘through’ traits; a direct prejudice.

Gendered associations of Impact are not only oversimplified but also incredibly problematic for an inclusive, meaningful Impact agenda and research culture. Currently, in the UK, the main funding body for research in the UK, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) uses a broad Impact definition: ‘ the demonstrable contribution that excellent research makes to society and the economy ’ (UKRI website, 2019 ). The most recent REF, REF2014, Impact was defined as ‘ …an effect on, change or benefit to the economy, society, culture, public policy or services, health, the environment or quality of life, beyond academia ’. In Australia, the Australian Research Council (ARC) proposed that researchers should ‘embed’ Impact into the research process from the outset. Both Australia and the UK have been engaged in policy borrowing around the evaluation of societal impact and share many similarities in approaches to generating and evaluating it. Indeed, Impact has been deliberately conceptualised by decision-makers, funders and governments as broad in order to increase the appearance of being inclusivity, to represent a broad range of disciplines, as well as to reflect the ‘diverse ways’ that potential beneficiaries of academic research can be reached ‘beyond academia’. The adoption of societal impact as a formalised criterion in the evaluation of research excellence was initially perceived to be potentially beneficial for women, due to its emphasis on concepts such as ‘public engagement’; ‘duty’ and non-academic ‘cooperation/collaboration’ (Yarrow and Davies, 2018 ). In addition, the adoption of narrative case studies to demonstrate Impact, rather than adopting a complete metrics-focused exercise, can also be seen as an opportunity for women to demonstrate excellence in the areas where they are over-represented, such as teaching, cultural enrichment, public engagement (Andrews et al., 2005 ), informing public policy and improving public services (Schatteman, 2014 ; Wheatle and BrckaLorenz, 2015). However, despite this, studies highlight how for the REF2014, only 25% of Impact Case Studies for business and management studies were from women (Davies et al., 2020 ).

With respect to Impact evaluation, previous research shows that there is a direct link between notions of academic culture, and how research (as a product of that culture) is valued and evaluated (Leathwood and Reid, 2008 ; p. 120). Geertz ( 1983 ) argues that academic membership is a ‘cultural frame that defines a great part of one’s life’ influences belief systems around how academic work is orientated. This also includes gendered associations implicit in the academic reward system, which in turn influences how academics believe success is to be evaluated, and in what form that success emerges. This has implications in how academic associations of the organisation of research work and the ongoing constructions of professional identity relative to gender, feeds into how these same academics operate as evaluators within a peer review system evaluation. In this case, instead of operating to challenge these tendencies, shared constructions of gendered academic work are amplified to the extent that they unconsciously influence perceptions of excellence and the judgements of feasibility as pertaining to the attribution and causality of the narrative argument. As such, in an evaluation of Impact with its ambiguous definition (Derrick, 2018 ), and the lack of external indicators to signal success independent of cultural constructions inherent in the panel membership, effects are assumed to be more acute. In this way, this paper argues that the Impact a-gender can act to further disadvantage women.

The research combines two existing research data sets in order to explore implicit notions of gender associated with the generation and evaluation of research Impact beyond academia. Below the two data sets and the steps involved in analysing and integrating findings are described along with our theoretical positioning within the feminist literature Where verbatim quotation is used, we have labelled the participants according to each study highlighting their role and gender. Further, the evaluator interviews specify the disciplinary panel and subpanel to which they belonged, as well as their evaluation responsibilities such as: ‘Outputs only’; ‘Outputs and Impact’; and ‘Impacts only’.

Analysis of qualitative data sets

This research involved the analysis and combination of two independently collected, qualitative interview databases. The characteristics and specifics of both databases are outlined below.

Interviews with mid-senior academics in the UK and Australia

Fifty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted between 2011 and 2013 with mid-senior academics at two research-intensive universities in Australia and the UK. The interviews were 30–60 min long and participants were sourced via the research offices at both sites. Participants were contacted via email and invited to participate in a study concerning resistance towards the Impact agenda in the UK and Australia and were specifically asked for their perceptions of its relationship with freedom, value and epistemic responsibility and variations across discipline, career stage and national context. Mostly focused on ex ante impact, some interviewees also described their experiences of Impact in the UK and Australia, in relation to its formal assessment as part of the Excellence Innovation Australia (EIA) for Australia and the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the UK.

Participants comprised mid to senior career academics with experience of winning funding from across the range of disciplines broadly representative of the arts and humanities, social sciences, physical science, maths and engineering and the life and earth sciences. For the purposes of this paper, although participant demographic information was collected, the relationship between the gender of the participants, their roles, disciplines/career stage was not explicitly explored instead, such conditions were emergent in the subsequent inductive coding during thematic analysis. A reflexive log was collected in order to challenge and draw attention to assumptions and underlying biases, which may affect the author, inclusive of their own gender identity. Further information on this is provided in Chubb ( 2017 ).

Pre- and post-evaluation interviews with REF2014 evaluators

REF2014 in the UK represented the world’s first formalised evaluation of ex-post impact, comprising of 20% of the overall evaluation. This framework served as a unique experimental environment with which to explore baseline tendencies towards impact as a concept and evaluative object (Derrick, 2018 ).

Two sets of semi-structured interviews were conducted with willing participants: sixty-two panellists were interviewed from the UK’s REF2014 Main Panel A prior to the evaluation taking place; and a fifty-seven of these were re-interviewed post-evaluation. Main Panel A covers six Sub-panels: (1) Clinical Medicine; (2) Public Health, Health Services and Primary Care; (3) Allied Health Professions, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy; (4) Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience; (5) Biological Sciences; and (6) Agriculture, Veterinary and Food Sciences. Again, the relationship between the gender of the participants and their discipline is not the focus for the purposes of this paper.

Database combination and identification of common emergent themes

The inclusion of data sets using both Australian and UK researchers was pertinent to this study as both sites were at the cusp of implementing the evaluation of Impact formally. These researcher interviews, as well as the evaluator interviews were conducted prior to any formalised Impact evaluation took place, but when both contexts required ex ante impact in terms of certain funding allocation, meaning an analysis of these baseline perceptions between databases was possible. Further, the inclusion of the post-evaluation interviews with panellists in the UK allowed an exploration of how these gendered perceptions identified in the interviews with researchers and panellists prior to the evaluation, influenced panel behaviour during the evaluation of Impact.

Initially, both data sets were analysed using similar, inductive, grounded-theory-informed approaches inclusive of a discourse and thematic analysis of the language used by participants when describing impact, which allowed for the drawing out of metaphor (Zinken et al., 2008 ). This allowed data combination and analysis of the two databases to be conducted in line with the recommendations for data-synthesis as outlined in Weed ( 2005 ) as a form of interpretation. This approach guarded against the quantification of qualitative findings for the purposes of synthesis, and instead focused on an initial dialogic approach between the two authors (Chubb and Derrick), followed by a re-analysis of qualitative data sets (Heaton, 1998 ) in line with the outcomes of the initial author-dialogue as a method of circumventing many of the drawbacks associated with qualitative data-synthesis. Convergent themes from each, independently analysed data set were discussed between authors, before the construction of new themes that were an iterative analysis of the combined data set. Drawing on the feminist tradition the authors did not apply feminist standpoint theory, instead a fully inductive approach was used to unearth rich empirical data. An interpretative and inductive approach to coding the data using NVIVO software in both instances was used and a reflexive log maintained. The availability of both full, coded, qualitative data sets, as well as the large sample size of each, allowed this data-synthesis to happen.

Researcher’s perceptions of Impact as either ‘hard’ or ‘soft’

Both UK and Australian academic researchers (researchers) perceive a guideline of gendered productivity (Davies et al., 2017 ; Sax et al., 2002 ; Astin, 1978 ; Ward and Grant, 1996 ). This is where men or women are being dissuaded (by their inner narratives, their institutions or by colleagues) from engaging in Impact either in preference to other (more masculine) notions of academic productivity, or towards softer (for women) because they consider themselves and are considered by others to be ‘good at it’. Participants often gendered the language of Impact and introduced notions of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. On the one hand, this rehearses and resurfaces long-standing views about the ‘Matthew Effect’ because often softer Impacts were seen as being of less value by participants, but also indicates that the word impact itself carries its own connotations, which are then weighed down further by more entrenched gender associations.

Our research shows that when describing Impact, it was not necessarily the masculinity or femininity of the researcher that was emphasised by participants, rather researchers made gendered presumptions around the type of Impact, or the activity used to generate it as either masculine or feminine. Some participants referred to their own research or others’ research as either ‘hard’ or as ‘soft and woolly’. Those who self-professed that their research was ‘soft’ or woolly’ felt that their research was less likely to qualify as having ‘hard’ impact in REF terms Footnote 3 ; instead, they claimed their research would impact socially, as opposed to economically; ‘ stuff that’s on a flaky edge — it’s very much about social engagement ’ (Languages, Australia, Professor, Male) . One researcher described Impact as ‘a nasty Treasury idea,’ comparing it to: a tsunami, crashing over everything which will knock out stuff that is precious ’ . (Theatre, Film and TV, UK, Professor, Male) . This imagery associates the concept of impact with force and weight (or hardness as mentioned earlier) particularly in disciplines where the effect of their research may be far more nuanced and subtle. One Australian research used force to depict the impact of teaching and claimed Impact was like a footprint, and teaching was ‘ a pretty heavy imprint ’ (Environment, UK, Professor, Male) . Participants characterised ‘force and weight’ as masculine, suggesting that some connotations of Impact and the associated activities may be gendered. The word ‘Impact’ was inherently perceived by many researchers as problematic, bound with linguistic connotations and those imposed by the official definitions, which in many cases are perceived as negative or maybe even gendered (Chubb, 2017 ): ‘ The etymology of a word like impact is interesting. I’ve always seen what I do as being a more subtle incremental engagement, relevance, a contribution ’. (Theatre, Film and TV, UK, Professor, Male) .

Researchers associated the word ‘impact’ with hard-ness, weight and force; ‘ anything that sorts of hits you ’ (Languages, UK, Senior Lecturer, Female) . One researcher suggested that Impact ‘ sounds kind of aggressive — the poor consumer! ’ (History, Australia, Professor, Female) . Talking about her own research in the performing arts, one Australian researcher commented: ‘ It’s such a pain in the arse because the Arts don’t fit the model. But in a way they do if you look at the impact as being something quite soft ’ (Music, Australia, Professor, Female) . Likewise, a similar comparison was seen by a female researcher from the mechanical engineering discipline: ‘ My impact case study wasn’t submitted mainly because I’m dealing with that slightly on the woolly side of things ’ (Mechanical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female) . Largely, gender related comments hailed from the ‘hard’ science and from arts and humanities researchers. Social scientists commented less, and indeed, one levelled that Impact was perhaps less a matter of gender, and more a matter of ability (Chubb, 2017 ): ‘ It’s about being articulate! Both guys and women who are very articulate and communicate well are outward looking on all of these things ’ ( Engineering Education, Australia, Professor, Female).

Gendered notions of performativity were also very pronounced by evaluators who were assessing the outputs only, suggesting how these panel cultures are orientated around notions of gender and scientific outputs as ‘hard’ if represented by numbers. The focus on numbers was perceived by the following panellist as ‘ a real strong tendency particularly amongst the Alpha male types ’ within the panel that relate to findings about the association of certain traits—risk aversion, competitiveness, for example, with a masculinised market logic in HE;

And I like that a lot because I think that there is a real strong tendency particularly amongst the Alpha male types of always looking at the numbers, like the numbers and everything. And I just did feel that steer that we got from the panel chairs, both of them were men by the way, but they were very clear, the impact factors and citations and the rank order of a journal is this is information that can be useful, but it’s not your immediate first stop. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impact, Female)

However, a metric-dominant approach was not the result of a male-dominated panel environment and instead, to the panels credit, evaluators were encouraged not to use one-metric as the only deciding factor between star-rating of quality. However, this is not to suggest that metrics did not play a dominant role. In fact, in order to resolve arguments, evaluators were encouraged to ‘ reflect on these other metrics ’ (Panel 3, Outputs only, Male) in order to rectify arguments where the assessment of quality was in conflict. This use of ‘other metrics’ was preferential to a resolution of differences that are based on more ‘soft’ arguments that are based on understanding where differences in opinion might lie in the interpretation of the manuscript’s quality. Instead, the deciding factor in resolving arguments would be the responsibility, primarily, of a ‘hard’ concept of quality as dictated by a numerical value;

Read the paper, judge the quality, judge the originality, the rigour, the impact — if you have to because you’re in dispute with another assessor, then reflect on these other metrics. So I don’t think metrics are that helpful actually if and until you’ve got a real issue to be able to make a decision. But I worry very much that metrics are just such a simple way of making the process much easier, and I’m worried about that because I think there’s a bit of game playing going on with impact factors and that kind of thing. (Panel 3, Outputs Only, Male)

Table 1 outlines the emergent themes, which, through inductive coding participants broadly categorised domains of research, their qualities and associations, types of activities and the gendered assumption generally made by participants when describing that activity. The table is intended only to provide an indicative overview of the overall tendencies of participants toward certain narratives as is not exhaustive, as well as a guide to interpret the perceptions of Impact illustrated in the below results.

Table one describes the dichotomous views that seemed to emerge from the research but it’s important to note that researchers associated Impact as related to gender in subtle, and in some cases overt ways. The data suggests that some male participants felt that female academics might be better at Impact, suggesting that female academics might find it liberating, linked it to a sense of duty or public service, implying that it was second nature. In addition, some male participants associated types of Impact domains as female-orientated activity and the reverse was the case with female and male-orientated ‘types’ of Impact. For example, at one extreme, a few male researchers seemed to perceive public engagement as something, which females would be particularly good at, generalising that they are not competitive ‘ women are better at this! They are less competitive! ’ (Environment, UK, Professor, Male) . Indeed, one male researcher suggested that competitiveness actually helps academics have an impact and does not impede it:

I get a huge buzz from trying to communicate those to a wider audience and winning arguments and seeing them used. It’s not the use that motivates me it’s the process of winning, I’m competitive! (Economics, UK, Professor, Male)

Analysis also revealed evidence that some researchers has gendered perceptions of Impact activities just as evaluators did. Here, women were more likely to promote the importance of engaging in Impact activities, whereas men were focused on producing indicators with hard, quantitative indicators of success. Some researchers implied that public engagement was not something entirely associated with the kinds of Impact needed to advance one’s career and for a few male researchers, this was accordingly associated with female academics. Certain female researchers in the sciences and the arts suggested similarly that there was a strong commitment among women to carry out public engagement, but that this was not necessarily shared by their male counterparts who, they perceived, undervalued this kind of work:

I think the few of us women in the faculty will grapple with that a lot about the relevance of what we’re doing and the usefulness, but for the vast majority of people it’s not there… [She implies that]…I think there is a huge gender thing there that every woman that you talk to on campus would consider that the role of the university is along the latter statement (*to communicate to the public). The vast majority of men would not consider that’s a role of the university. There’s a strong gender thing. (Chemical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female)

Notwithstanding, it is important to distinguish between engagement and Impact. This research shows that participants perceive Impact activities to be gendered. There was a sense from one arts female researcher that women might be more interested in getting out there and communicating their work but that crucially, it is not the be-all and end- all of doing research: ‘ Women feel that there’s something more liberating, I can empathise with that, but that couldn’t be the whole job ’. Music, Australia, Professor, Female Footnote 4 . When this researcher, who was very much orientated towards Impact, asked if there were enough interviewees, she added ‘ mind you, you’ve probably spoken to enough men in lab coats ’. This could imply that inward-facing roles are associated with male-orientated activity and outward facing roles as perceived as more female orientated. Such sentiments perhaps relate to a binary delineation of women as more caring, subjective, applied and of men as harder, scientific and theoretical/ rational. This links to a broader characterisation of HE as marketised and potentially, more ‘male’ or at least masculinised—where increasing competitiveness, marketisation and performativity can be seen as linked to an increasingly macho way of doing business (Blackmore, 2002 ; Deem, 1998 ; Grummell et al., 2009 ; Reay, n.d. ). The data is also suggestive of the attitude that communication is a ‘soft’ skill and the interpersonal is seen as a less masculine trait. ‘ This is a huge generalisation but I still say that the profession is so dominated by men, undergraduates are so dominated by men and most of those boys will come into engineering because they’re much more comfortable dealing with a computer than with people ’ (Chemical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female) . Again, this suggests women are more likely to pursue those scientific subjects, which will make a difference or contribute to society (such as nursing or environmental research, certainly those subjects that would be perceived as less ‘hard’ science domains).

There was also a sense that Impact activity, namely in this case public engagement and community work, was associated with women more than men by some participants (Amâncio, 2005 ). However, public engagement and certain social impact domains appeared to have a lower status and intellectual worth in the eyes of some participants. Some inferred that social and ‘soft’ impacts are seen as associated. With discipline. For instance, research concerning STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine) subjects with females. They in turn may be held in low esteem. Some of the accounts suggest that soft impacts are perceived by women as not ‘counting’ as Impact:

‘ At least two out of the four of us who are female are doing community service and that doesn’t count, we get zero credit, actually I would say it gets negative credit because it takes time away from everything else ’. (Education Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female)

This was intimated again by another female UK computer scientist who claimed that since her work was on the ‘woolly side’ of things, and her impacts were predominantly in the social and public domain, she would not be taken seriously enough to qualify as a REF Impact case study, despite having won an award for her work:

‘ I don’t think it helps that if I were a male professor doing the same work I might be taken more seriously. It’s interesting, why recently? Because I’ve never felt that I’ve not been taken seriously because I’m a woman, but something happened recently and I thought, oh, you’re not taking me seriously because I’m a woman. So I think it’s a part ’. (Computer Science, UK, Professor, Female)

Researchers also connect the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ associations with Impact described earlier to male and female traits. The relationship between Impact and gender is not well understood and it is not clear how much these issues are directly relatable to Impact or more symptomatic of the broader picture in HE. In order to get a broader picture, it is important to examine how these gendered notions of Impact translate into its evaluation. Some participants suggested that gender is a factor in the securing of grant money—certainly this comment reveals a local speculation that ‘the big boys’ get the grants, in Australia, at least: ‘ ARC grants? I’ve had a few but nothing like the big boys that get one after the other ,’ (Chemical Engineering, Australia, Professor, Female) . This is not dissimilar to the ‘alpha male’ comments from the evaluators described below who note a tendency for male evaluators to rely on ‘hard’ numbers whose views are further examined in the following section.

Gendered excellence in Impact evaluation

In the pre-evaluation interviews, panellists were asked about what they perceived to be ‘excellent’ research and ‘excellent’ Impact. Within this context, are mirrored conceptualisations of impacts as either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ as was seen with the interviews with researchers described above. These conceptualisations were captured prior to the evaluation began. They can therefore be interpreted as the raw, baseline assumptions of Impact that are free from the effects of the panel group, showed that there were differences in how evaluators perceived Impact, and that these perceptions were gendered.

Although all researchers conceptualised Impact as a linear process for the purposes of the REF2014 exercise (Derrick, 2018 ), there was a tendency for female evaluators to be open to considering the complexity of Impact, even in a best-case scenario. This included a consideration that Impact as dictated within the narrative might have different indicators of value to different evaluators; ‘ I just think that that whole framing means that there is a form of normative standard of perfect impact ’ (Main Panel, Outputs and Impacts, Female) . This evaluator, in particular, went further to state how that their impression of Impact would be constructed from the comparators available during the evaluation;

‘ Given that I’m presenting impact as a good story, it would be like you saying to me; ‘Can you describe to me a perfect Shakespearean play?’…. well now of course, I can’t. You can give me lots of plays but they all have different kinds of interesting features. Different people would say that their favourite play was different. To me, if you’re taking interpretivist view, constructivist view, there is no perfect normative standard. It’s just not possible ’. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impacts, Female)

Female evaluators were also more sensitive to other complex factors influencing the evaluation of Impact, including time lag; ‘ …So it takes a long time for things like that to be accepted…it took hundreds of studies before it was generally accepted as real ’ (Panel 1, Outputs and Impacts, Female ); as well as the indirect way that research influences policy as a form of Impact;

‘ I don’t think that anything would get four stars without even blinking. I think that is impossible to answer because you have to look at the whole evidence in this has gone on, and how that does link to the impact that is being claimed, and then you would then have to look at how that impact, exactly how that research has impacted on the ways of the world, in terms of change or in terms of society or whatever. I don’t think you can see this would easily get four stars because of the overall process is being looked at, as well as the actual outcome ’ . (Panel 3, Outputs and Impact, Female)

Although these typologies were not absolute, there was a lack of complexity in the nuances around Impact. There was also heavily gendered language around Impacts as measurable, or not, that mirrored the association of Impact as being either ‘hard’, and therefore measurable, or ‘soft, and therefore more nuanced in value. In this way, male evaluators expressed Impact as a causal, linear event that occurred ‘ in a very short time ’ (P2, Outputs and Impact, Male) and involved a single ‘ star ’ (P3, Impacts only, Male) or ‘ impact champion ’ (Main Panel, Outputs and Impacts, Male) that drove it from start (research), to finish (Impact). These associations about Impact being ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ made by evaluators, mirror the responses from researchers in the above sections. In the example below, the evaluator used words such as ‘ strong ’ and ‘ big way ’ to describe Impact success, as well as emphasises causality in the argument;

‘ …if it has affected a lot of people or affected policy in a strong way or created change in a big way, and it can be clearly linked back to the research, and it’s made a difference ’. (Panel 2, Outputs and Impact, Male)

These perhaps show disciplinary differences as much as gendered differences. Further, there was a stronger tendency for male evaluators to strive towards conceptualisations of excellence in Impact as measurable or ‘ it’s something that is decisive and actionable ’ (Panel 6, Impacts, Male) . One male evaluator explained his conceptualised version of Impact excellence as ‘ straightforward ’ and therefore ‘ obviously four-star ’ due to the presence of metrics with which to measure Impact. This was a perception more commonly associated with male evaluators;

‘ …if somebody has been able to devise a — let’s say pancreatic cancer — which is a molecular cancer, which hasn’t made any progress in the last 40 years, and where the mortality is close to 100% after diagnosis, if someone devised a treatment where now suddenly, after diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, 90 percent of the people are now still alive 5 years later, where the mortality rate is almost 0%, who are alive after 5 years. That, of course, would be a dramatic, transformative impact ’. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impact, Male)

In addition, his tendency to seek various numeric indicators for measuring, and therefore assessing Impact (predominantly economic impact), as well as compressing its realisation to a small period of time ( ‘ suddenly ’ ) in a causal fashion, was more commonly expressed in male evaluators. This tendency automatically indicates the association of impacts as either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ and divided along gendered norms, but also expresses Impact in monetary terms;

‘ Something that went into a patient or the company has pronounced with…has spun out and been taken up by a commercial entity or a clinical entity ’ (Panel 3, Outputs and Impacts, Male) , as well as impacts that are marketised; ‘ A new antimicrobial drug to market ’. (Panel 6, Outputs and Impact, Male) .

There was also the perception that female academics would be better at engagement (Johnson et al., 2014 ; Crettaz Von Roten, 2011 ) due to its link with notions of ‘ duty ’ (as a mother), ‘ engagement ’ and ‘ public service ’ are reflected in how female evaluators were also more open to the idea that excellent Impact is achieved through productive, ongoing partnerships with non-academic stakeholders. Here, the reflections of ‘duty’ from the evaluators was also mirrored by in interviews with researchers. Indeed, the researchers merged perceptions of parenthood, an academic career and societal impact generation. One female researcher drew on her role as a mother as supportive of her ability to participate in Impact generation, ‘ I have kids that age so… ’ (Biology, UK, Senior Lecturer, Female) . Indeed, parenthood emerged from researchers of both genders in relation to the Impact agenda. Two male participants spoke positively about the need to transfer knowledge of all kinds to society referencing their role as parents: ‘ I’m all for that. I want my kids to have a rich culture when they go to school ’ (Engineering, Australia, Professor, Male, E2) , and ‘ My children are the extension of my biological life and my students are an extension of my thoughts ’ (Engineering, Australia, Professor, Male, E1) . One UK female biologist commented that she indeed enjoys delivering public engagement and outreach and implies a reference to having a family as enabling her ability to do so: ‘ It’s partly being involved with the really well-established outreach work ,’ (Biology, UK, Senior Lecturer, Female) .

For the evaluators, the idea that ‘public service’ as second nature for female academics, was reflected in how female evaluators perceived the long, arduous and serendipitous nature of Impact generation, as well as their commitment to assessing the value of Impact as a ‘pathway’ rather than in line with impact as a ‘product’. Indeed, this was highlighted by one male evaluator who suggested that the measurement and assessment of Impact ‘ …needs to be done by economists ’ and that

‘ you [need] to put in some quantification one everything…[that] puts a negative value on being sick and a positive large value on living longer. So, yeah, the greatest impact would be something that saves us money and generates income for the country but something broad and improves quality of life ’. (Panel 2, Impacts, Male)

Since evaluators tend to exercise cognitive bias in evaluative situations (Langfeldt, 2006 ), these preconceived ideas about Impact, its generation and the types of people responsible for its success are also likely to permeate the evaluative deliberations around Impact during the peer review process. What is uncertain is the extent that these messages are dominant within the panel discourse, and therefore the extent that they influence the formation of a consensus within the group, and the ‘dominant definition’ of Impact (Derrick, 2018 ) that emerges as a result.

Notions of gender from the evaluators post-evaluation

Similar notions of gender-roles in academia pertaining to notions of scientific productivity were echoed by academics who were charged with its evaluation as part of the UK’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework. Interviews with evaluators revealed not only that the panel working-methods and characteristics about what constituted a ‘good’ evaluator were implicitly along gendered norms, but also that the assumed credit assumptions of performativity were also based on gender.

In assessments of the Impact criterion, an assessment that is not as amenable to quantitative representation requiring panels to conceptualise a very complex process, with unstandardised measures of significance and reach, there was still a gendered perception of Impact being ‘women’s work’ in academia. This perception was based on the tendency towards conceptualising Impact as ‘slightly grubby’ and ‘not very pure’, which echoes previously reported pre-REF2014 tensions that Impact is a task that an academic does when they cannot do real research (de Jong et al., 2015 );

But I would say that something like research impact is — it seems something slightly grubby. It’s not seen as not — by the academics, as not very pure. To some of them, it seems women’s work. Talking to the public, do you see what I mean? (Main Panel, Outputs and Impact, Female)

In addition, gendered roles also relate to how the panel worked with the assessment of Impact. Previous research has outlined how the equality and diversity assessment of panels for REF2014 were not conducted until after panellists were appointed (Derrick, 2018 ), leading to a lack of equal-representation of women on most panels. Some of the female panellists reflected that this resulted not only in a hyper-awareness of one’s own identity and value as a woman on the panel, but also implicitly associating the role that a female panellist would play in generating the evaluation. One panellist below, reflected that she was the only female in a male-dominated panel, and that the only other females in the room were the panel secretariat. The panellist goes further to explain how this resulted in a gendered-division of labour surrounding the assessment of Impact;

I mean, there’s a gender thing as well which isn’t directing what you’re talking about what you’re researching, but I was the only woman on the original appointed panel. The only other women were the secretariat. In some ways I do — there was initially a very gendered division of perspective where the women were all the ones aggregate the quantitative research, or typing it all up or talking about impact whereas the men were the ones who represented the big agenda, big trials. (Main Panel, Outputs and Impact, Female)

In addition, evaluators expressed opinions about what constituted a good and a bad panel member. From this, the evaluation showed that traits such as the ability to work as a ‘team’ and to build on definitions and methods of assessment for Impact through deliberation and ‘feedback’ were perceived along gendered lines. In this regard, women perceived themselves as valuable if they were ‘happy to listen to discussions’, and not ‘too dogmatic about their opinion’. Here, women were valued if they played a supportive, supplementary role in line with Bellas ( 1999 ), which was in clear distinction to men who contributed as creative thinkers and forgers of new ideas. As one panellist described;

A good panel member is an Irish female. A good panel member was someone who was happy to — someone who is happy to listen to discussions; to not be too dogmatic about their opinion, but can listen and learn, because impact is something we are all learning from scratch. Somebody who wasn’t too outspoken, was a team player. (Panel 3, Outputs and Impact, Female)

Likewise, another female evaluator reflected on the reasons for her inclusion as a panel member was due to her ‘generalist perspective’ as opposed to a perspective that is over prescribed. This was suggestive of how an overly specialist perspective would run counter to the reasons that she was included as a panellist which was, in her opinion, due to her value as an ethnic and gender ‘token’ to the panel;

‘ I think it’s also being able to provide some perspective, some general perspective. I’m quite a generalist actually, I’m not a specialist……So I’m very generalist. And I think they’re also well aware of the ethnic and gender composition of that and lots of reasons why I’m asked on panels. (Panel 1, Outputs and Impact, Female)

Women perceived their value on the panel as supportive, as someone who is prepared to work on the team, and listen to other views towards as a generalist, and constructionist, rather than as an enforced of dogmatic views and raw, hard notions of Impact that were represented through quantitative indicators only. As such, how the panel operated reflects general studies of how work can be organised along gender lines, as well as specific to workload and power in the academy. The similarity between the gendered associations towards conceptualising Impact from the researchers and evaluators, combined with how the panel organises its work along gendered lines, suggests how panel culture echoes the implicit tendencies within the wider research community. The implications of this tendency in relation to the evaluation of non-academic Impact is discussed below.

Discussion: an Impact a-gender?

This study shows how researchers and evaluators in two, independent data sets echoed a gendered orientation towards Impact, and how this implies an Impact a-gender. That gendered notions of Impact emerged as a significant theme from two independent data sets speaks to the importance of the issue. It also illustrates the need for policymakers and funding organisations to acknowledge its potential effects as part of their efforts towards embedding a more inclusive research culture around the generation and evaluation of research impact beyond academia.

Specifically, this paper has identified gendered language around the generation of, and evaluation of Impact by researchers in Australia and the UK, as well as by evaluators by the UK’s most recent Research Excellence Framework in 2014. For the UK and Australia, the prominence of Impact, as well as the policy borrowing between each country (Chubb, 2017 ) means that a reliable comparison of pre-evaluation perceptions of researchers and evaluators can be made. In both data sets presumptions of Impact as either ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ by both researchers and evaluators were found to be gendered. Whereas it is not surprising that panel culture reflects the dominant trends within the wider academic culture, this paper raises the question of how the implicit operation of gender bias surrounding notions of scientific productivity and its measurement, invade and therefore unduly influence the evaluation of those notions during peer-review processes. This negates the motivation behind a broad Impact definition and evaluation as inclusive since unconscious bias towards women can still operate if left unchecked and unmanaged.

Gendered notions of excellence were also related to the ability to be ‘competitive’, and that once Impact became a formalised, countable and therefore competitive criterion, it also become masculine where previously it existed as a feminised concept related to female academic-ness. As a feminised concept, Impact once referred to notions of excellence requiring communication such as public engagement, or stakeholder coordination—the ‘softer’ impacts. However, this association only remains ‘soft’ insofar as Impact remains unmeasurable, or more nuanced in definition. This is especially pertinent for the evaluation of societal impact where already conceived ideas of engagement and ‘ women’s work ’ influence how evaluators assess the feasibility of impact narratives for the purposes of its assessment. This paper also raises the question that notions of gender in relation to Impact persist irrespective of the identities assumed for the purposes of its evaluation (i.e., as a peer reviewer). This is not to say that academic culture in the UK and Australia, where Impact is increasingly being formalised into rewards systems, is not changing. More that there is a tendency in some evaluations for the burden of evidence to be applied differently to genders due to tensions surrounding what women are ‘good’ at doing: engagement, versus what ‘men’ are good at doing regarding Impact. In this scenario, quantitative indicators of big, high-level impacts are to be attributable to male traits, rather than female. This has already been noted in student evaluations of teaching (Kogan et al., 2010 ) and of academic leadership performance where the focus on the evaluation is on how others interpret performance based on already held gendered views about competence based on behaviours (Williams et al., 2014 ; Holt and Ellis, 1998 ). As such, when researchers transcend these gendered identities that are specific to societal impact, there is a danger of an Impact-a-gender bias arising in the assessment and forecasting of Impact. This paper extends this understanding and outlines how this may also be the case for assessments of societal impact.

By examining perceptions, as well as using an inductive analysis, this study was able to unearth unconsciously employed gendered notions that would not have been prominent or possible to pick up if we asked the interviewees about gender directly. This was particularly the case for the re-analysis of the post-evaluation interviews. However, future studies might consider incorporating a disciplinary-specific perspective as although the evaluators were from the medical/biomedical disciplines, researchers were from a range of disciplines. This would identify any discipline-specific risk towards an Impact a-gender. Nonetheless, further work that characterises the impact a-gender, as well as explores its wider implications for gender inequities within HE is currently underway.

How research evidence is labelled as excellent and therefore trustworthy, is heavily dictated by an evaluation process that is perceived as impartial and fair. However, if evaluations are compounded by gender bias, this confounds assessments of excellence with gendered expectation of non-academic impact. Consequently, gendered expectations of excellence for non-academic impact has the potential to: unconsciously dissuade women from pursuing more masculinised types of impact; act as a barrier to how female researchers mobilise their research evidence; as well as limit the recognition female researchers gain as excellent and therefore trustworthy sources of evidence.

The aim of this paper was not to criticise the panellists and researchers for expressing gendered perspectives, nor to present evidence about how researchers are unduly influenced by gender bias. The results shown do not support either of these views. However, the aim of this paper was to acknowledge how gender bias in research Impact generation can lead to a panel culture dominated by academics that translate the implicit and explicit biases within academia that influence its evaluation. This paper raises an important question regarding what we term the ‘Impact a-gender’, which outlines a mechanism in which gender bias feeds into the generation and evaluation of a research criterion, which is not traditionally associated with a hard, metrics-masculinised output from research. Along with other techniques used to combat unconscious bias in research evaluation, simply by identifying, and naming the issue, this paper intends to combat its ill effects through a community-wide discussions as a mechanism for developing tools to mitigate its wider effect if left unchecked or merely accepted as ‘acceptable’. In addition, it is suggested that government and funding organisations explicitly refer to the impact a-gender as part of their wider EDI (Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) agendas towards minimising the influence of unconscious bias in research impact and evaluation.

Data availability

Data is available upon request subject to ethical considerations such as consent so as not to compromise the individual privacy of our participants.

Change history

19 may 2020.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

For the purposes of this paper, when the text refers to non-academic, societal impact, or the term ‘Impact’ we are referring to the change and effect as defined by REF2014/2021 and the larger conceptualisation of impact that is generated through knowledge exchange and engagement. In this way, the paper refers to a broad conceptualisation of research impact that occurs beyond academia. This allows a distinction between Impact as central to this article’s contribution, as opposed to academic impact, and general word ‘impact’.

Impact scholars or those who are ‘good at impact’ are often equated with applied researchers.

One might interpret this as meaning ‘economic impact’.

This is described in the next section as ‘women’s work’ by one evaluator.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leaders Programme (ES/K008897/2). We would also like to acknowledge their peers for offering their views on the paper in advance of publication and in doing so thank Dr. Richard Watermeyer, University of Bath, Professor Paul Wakeling, University of York and Dr. Gabrielle Samuel, Kings College London.

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Chubb, J., Derrick, G.E. The impact a-gender: gendered orientations towards research Impact and its evaluation. Palgrave Commun 6 , 72 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-0438-z

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Formulating Research Questions

Research questions typically flow from research priorities (see Rethinking Research Priorities and Outcomes ) and from the theories and concepts that frame research (see Rethinking Concepts and Theories ). Research priorities—along with concepts and theories—directly influence how research is designed. They function to 

• 1. delimit questions asked—and, by implication, questions not asked (see, for example, Case Study: Genetics of Sex Determination ).
• 2. frame the research design and choice of methods.

As with other stages of the research and development processes, the choice of a research question is often underpinned by assumptions—both implicit and explicit—about sex and gender (see Method: Analyzing Gender ). As in other stages of research and development, potential for creative innovation lies in critically examining existing practices in light of available evidence about sex and gender (Bührer et al., 2006; Schraudner et al., 2006; Schiebinger, 2008; Wylie, et al., Klinge, 2010; IOM, 2010; Wajcman, 2010).

Critical questions for analyzing the significance (if any) of sex and gender in formulating research questions:

1. What is the current state of knowledge of sex and gender ( norms , identities , or relations ) in a given area of research or development?

2. What do we not know as a result of not analyzing sex and gender?

3. How have sex and gender functioned to limit the research questions posed in this field? For example, coronary angiography is a powerful diagnostic tool for assessing coronary artery disease, but it can cause bleeding complications, especially in women. Researchers asked how angiography could be made safer and designed and patented new catheters and procedures to allow angiography from the radial artery rather than the groin. This shift reduces bleeding in everyone (see Case Study: Heart Disease in Diverse Populations ).

4. Have assumptions been made about sex and gender? Are these justified in light of available evidence? Are assumptions underpinning these research questions invalid when subjected to critical analysis? For example, cultural assumptions about gender difference can lead companies to market “gender-specific” products—in one case a sex-specific knee prosthesis—that may not be the best choice for consumers (see Case Study: De-Gendering the Knee ). Have researchers assumed a sex or gender binary? For example, recent research suggests that some transgender people may be at higher risk for heart disease, but transgender patients are not typically a focus for heart disease research (see Case Study: Heart Disease in Diverse Populations ).

5. Have any potentially relevant groups of research subjects been left out (e.g., female animals in drug research, women and gender-diverse people in systems biology, pregnant women and large people in automotive engineering)? (See Case Studies: Prescription Drugs , Systems Biology , and Inclusive Crash Test Dummies .)

6. What research questions would lead to more robust research designs and methods? For example, in studies of sexual differentiation, geneticists have revealed the shortcomings of scientific models that portrayed the female developmental pathway as “passive.” By challenging assumptions of passivity, researchers formulated new questions about the ovarian developmental pathway. New findings now suggest that both female and male development are active, gene-mediated processes (see Case Study: Genetics of Sex Determination ).

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• M.V. Lee Badgett Distinguished Scholar
• Kellan E. Baker Consultant, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
• Kerith J. Conron Research Director
• Gary J. Gates Research Director, Former
• Alison Gill Vice President for Legal & Policy, American Atheists
• Emily Greytak Director of Research, ACLU
• Jody L. Herman Senior Scholar of Public Policy
• Other GenIUSS Group Authors

Executive Summary

Why ask survey questions to identify transgender and other gender minorities in surveys?

Transgender and other gender minority individuals come from a wide range of geographic and demographic backgrounds. Transgender and other gender minority people are diverse in such factors as age, race, ethnicity, income, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and immigration status. Despite their differences, gender minority people from all backgrounds face common experiences of discrimination in a wide array of settings across the United States today. The consequences of discrimination can be severe. According to the 2011 National Healthcare Disparities Report , transgender people, particularly those who are visibly gender non-conforming, are more likely to experience violence in the home, on the street, and in health care settings. Transgender and other gender minority people also report an elevated prevalence of HIV and suicide attempts.

While the existing body of research has helped policymakers, researchers, providers, and advocates begin to investigate and address these concerns, many aspects of the needs and experiences of transgender people and other gender minorities remain unexplored. Collecting population-based data on the social, economic, and health concerns of these communities is essential if federal, state, local, and nonprofit agencies are to adequately serve gender minority people and develop effective strategies for improving the circumstances of transgender and other gender minority people’s lives. In particular, if transgender and other gender minority people could be identified in key federal surveys, the resulting data could provide transgender and other gender minority people with a critical tool to guide local and national discussions about policy, resource allocation, and other issues that affect them.

Key federal surveys targeted for the addition of sex and gender-related measures to identify transgender and other gender minority respondents are as follows:

The American Community Survey (ACS), the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), and the National Survey of Veterans (NSV). A few surveys (the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBS), and the National Inmate Survey (NIS)) do have measures to identify transgender and/or other gender minority respondents, but either more consistent addition of these measures is needed across surveys administered in the states or these surveys should consider revised measures.

What are the recommended approaches for identifying transgender and other gender minority respondents in surveys?

In this report, we describe recent research by GenIUSS scholars and other researchers to design and test measures that will identify transgender and other gender minority respondents in surveys of the general population (i.e., large-scale population-based surveys). Questions that enable survey respondents to be classified as transgender or cisgender, often used in combination, include measurement of sex, gender identity, and transgender status. In population-based surveys, it is as important to accurately identify gender minority respondents through these questions as it is to minimize “false positives,” which are members of the general population who might accidentally identify themselves as transgender or another gender minority. The measures listed as “recommended” in this report have tested well with both transgender and cisgender respondents. Measures listed as “promising” need further testing. Although further research is needed, particularly with more diverse, representative samples, there is sufficient evidence to include measures that classify transgender and other gender minority respondents and cisgender respondents in population-based surveys now.

The following are approaches the GENIUSS Group recommends

Transgender/cisgender status via the “two-step” approach

When two demographic items can be added to an adult survey (or, in most instances, a standing measure of sex replaced and a measure of current gender identity added), we recommend including measures of self-reported assigned sex at birth and current gender identity. Testing shows that the “two-step” approach appears the most likely to have high sensitivity, as well as high specificity, with adults. It is unclear whether assigned sex at birth should precede or follow current gender identity on population-based surveys; future studies should investigate ordering effects.

Recommended measures for the “two-step” approach

Assigned sex at birth

What sex were you assigned at birth, on your original birth certificate?

Current gender identity

How do you describe yourself? (check one)

• Transgender
• Do not identify as female, male, or transgender

Promising measure for the “current gender identity” step in the “two step” approved (recommended for further testing)

What is your current gender identity? (Check all that apply)

• Trans male/trans man
• Trans female/trans woman
• Genderqueer/gender non-conforming
• Different identity (please state): _______

Transgender/cisgender status via the MA BRFSS 2013 single-item approach

When valid, self- report measures of assigned sex at birth and current gender identity are not on a survey and cannot be added (or replace existing measures), then the following stand-alone demographic item is recommended:

Recommended measure for single-item transgender/cisgender status approach

Some people describe themselves as transgender when they experience a different gender identity from their sex at birth. For example, a person born into a male body, but who feels female or lives as a woman. Do you consider yourself to be transgender?

• Yes, transgender, male to female
• Yes, transgender, female to male
• Yes, transgender, gender non-conforming

Note—additional information for telephone interviewer if asked about definition of transgender

Some people describe themselves as transgender when they experience a different gender identity from their sex at birth. For example, a person born into a male body, but who feels female or lives as a woman would be transgender. Some transgender people change their physical appearance so that it matches their internal gender identity. Some transgender people take hormones and some have surgery. A transgender person may be of any sexual orientation – straight, gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Note—additional information for interviewer if asked about definition of gender non-conforming

Some people think of themselves as gender non-conforming when they do not identify only as a man or only as a woman.

LGBT identity

When valid, self-report measures of assigned sex at birth and current gender identity are not on a survey and cannot be added (or replace existing measures) and a valid and separate measure of sexual orientation identity is not already on a survey and cannot be added, then the following stand-alone demographic item is recommended (without a write-in response option):

Recommended measure for LGBT identity

Do you think of yourself as (please check all that apply):

• Gay or lesbian
• Transgender, transsexual, or gender non-conforming

IF yes to transgender, then probe:

• Transgender or transsexual, male to female
• Transgender or transsexual, female to male
• Gender non-conforming

How and where should these measures be added to surveys?

After selecting survey items appropriate for the research question and study purpose, it is next necessary to consider how to conduct the survey, including mode of data collection, placement of questions, and skip patterns. Careful placement, survey mode adaptations, and skip patterns may improve the quality of data about transgender and other gender minority people.

Chapter 3 provides a detailed review of these considerations and describes the following best practices:

• We recommend asking assigned sex at birth and current gender identity questions to implement the two-step approach on population-based surveys.
• When possible, we recommend placing sex and gender-related questions on self-administered portions of a survey. This method could involve the inclusion of a subset of questions on a paper-and-pencil self-administered questionnaire or inclusion on a self-administered computer-assisted interview.
• We recommend including sex and gender-related survey questions at the end of the standard “demographics” section. for paper-and-pencil surveys, we recommend these questions be placed early in a survey, but not on the cover page to help ensure privacy or anonymity of respondents.

Are there any special considerations in using these measures related to age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and intersex status?

Chapter 4 describes considerations related to age, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and intersex status when designing and analyzing sex and gender-related measures. Briefly, below are descriptions of some of these considerations:

We outline three additional issues to consider when collecting data from adolescents:

• Transgender and other gender minority youth may not adopt alternative gender identity labels until mid- to late- adolescence but may exhibit behavior that is gender non-conforming in childhood. Cisgender youth, particularly cisgender lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth, may also exhibit gender non-conforming behavior that places them at elevated risk of violence and harassment. When sample sizes are small and/or the goal is to identify a minority group that is at risk of negative social attention (i.e., gender non-conforming youth), then a measure of gender expression, when accompanied by a valid measure of assigned sex at birth (or current gender identity–please refer to note on page 15 of Chapter 2), may be appropriate.
• Adolescents may have particular difficulties with complex vocabulary and sentences. There fore, questions designed for adolescents should take extra care to use plain language and simple sentences. Terms used in measures of sex and gender should be defined since adolescents, and cisgender (non-transgender) adolescents, in particular, conflate the terms sex and gender and have varying understanding of the term transgender , masculine , and feminine .
• Adolescents often lack privacy when completing surveys in schools. For this reason, we recommend that measures that make transgender or other gender minority youth identifiable not be placed at the beginning of surveys when peers are likely to be responding to the same survey items at the same time.

Given these considerations, Chapter 4 provides recommended and promising approaches for measuring gender expression, transgender status, and sex assigned at birth among adolescents.

Race/Ethnicity While some research has examined whether there are differences in response to measurement items on LGBT identity items associated with race or ethnicity, there has been limited analysis of whether known community-level differences in nomenclature and terminology related to self-identity influences the accuracy and sensitivity of measures that can be used to identify transgender and other gender minority people of color. In Chapter 4, we describe how minority stress affects transgender and other gender minority people of color in disparate ways, but gaining a fuller understanding of this disparate impact will only be advanced through large, ongoing surveys where data may be aggregated over time and across place. Further, we discuss issues regard-ing data analysis, measures for Spanish-language surveys based on research in Puerto Rico, and future research needs.

Socioeconomic Status (SES) Social and economic marginalization is an unfortunate reality for many transgender and other gender minority people. Socioeconomic disparities are an important consideration due to the methodological implications for the science of understanding the health, epidemiology, and demography of gender minority populations. First, ensuring that low SES, vulnerable gender minority communities are “counted” is key to addressing the social determinants of health and to getting a fuller picture of the population health of transgender and other gender minority people. Second, if transgender and other gender minority people are disproportionately not living in traditional housing units typically considered for inclusion in population-based surveys (i.e., if they are homeless or unstably housed), then they are less likely to be included in those surveys. This situation creates selection bias whereby the sampling strategy disproportionately captures gender minority respondents who have higher SES, thus under-representing lower SES individuals in that population. Multiple sampling strategies and multiple survey modes, described in Chapter 4, may improve data collection efforts and accuracy.

Intersex Status Three major issues in identifying intersex people/people with DSDs on surveys are as follows: First, some intersex people/people with DSDs do not identify with the term “intersex” as an identity or gender identity. Therefore, including the term “intersex” in questions that utilize a list of gender identity terms may not capture all intersex people/people with DSDs. second, “Intersex” is sometimes used as an identity among people who do not have intersex traits/DSDs. Therefore, researchers must utilize measures that will clearly identify respondents from the population of interest. finally, “intersex” is not included as an option for sex entered on birth certificate forms. Therefore, items asking assigned sex at birth should not include intersex as an answer option. In Chapter 4, we discuss some potential measures that could be tested to identify intersex people/people with DSDs on surveys.

Are there any considerations regarding analysis of these measures?

The relatively small samples usually associated with transgender and other gender minority populations coupled with distinctive issues associated with the measurement of sex and gender on surveys create a variety of analytical challenges for researchers. Chapter 5 summarizes some of these challenges and, where possible, identifies analytical strategies to improve the accuracy and validity of analyses. These strategies include the creation of a larger sample by routine administration of the same survey that allows aggregation of data over time and across survey locations. This type of aggregation can yield relatively large samples of transgender and other gender minority respondents that allow for nuanced analyses. The recommended “two-step” approach, described in Chapter 2, is particularly important since this approach is designed to capture the nuance of various subcategories of the gender minority population, which may otherwise be lost. A sample analysis of a “two-step” approach to identifying transgender and other gender minority respondents is provided in Chapter 5. Overall, we recommend using the most specific and detailed measures of sex and gender as are possible given the design and analysis plans of any particular survey.

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More Inclusive Gender Questions Added to the General Social Survey

The General Social Survey, or GSS, is one of the most important data sources for researchers studying American society. For the first time ever in its nearly 50-year history, the survey’s 2018 data release includes information on respondents’ self-identified sex and gender. The new data will allow researchers to measure the size of the transgender and gender non-binary populations and identify the challenges they face, information that can in turn shape public policy. The research of former Clayman Institute faculty fellow, Aliya Saperstein, supported this important change.

First fielded in 1972, the GSS is an especially important source of longitudinal data for social scientists. Longitudinal data derive value in part by asking identically worded questions at each time point. This allows researchers to attribute changes in how respondents answer demographic, attitudinal, and behavioral questions to real changes over time rather than to changes in question wording. Changing or adding questions is not simple. Old questions may be known to be valid, whereas new questions may pose challenges related to understandability and reliability. Researchers may be uncertain about whether new questions really measure what they believe they do. However, over time, old questions may not accurately reflect newer academic understandings of the concepts they are meant to measure. When budgets are fixed, survey designers make tradeoffs when deciding whether to keep an old question or update it.

On previous surveys, interviewers selected “male” or “female” on behalf of—and without directly asking—respondents. Yet, since the GSS’s first iteration, social scientists’ understanding of sex has changed markedly in ways that conflict with this measurement.

These tensions are embodied by the measurement of sex historically used by the GSS. On previous surveys, interviewers selected “male” or “female” on behalf of—and without directly asking—respondents. Yet, since the GSS’s first iteration, social scientists’ understanding of sex has changed markedly in ways that conflict with this measurement. For one, many scholars differentiate sex from gender. They understand sex to be based in biological factors, like anatomy, and comprised of categories like “male,” “female,” and “intersex.” Gender, on the other hand, involves behavioral expectations and is comprised of categories like “men,” “women,” “transgender,” and more. Additionally, social scientists acknowledge the importance of self-identification, and so seek to know how the respondent describes their own gender rather than how the interviewer describes it.

In recent years, sociologists have raised concerns about how surveys measure sex. Laurel Westbrook, associate professor of sociology at Grand Valley State University, and Aliya Saperstein, associate professor of sociology at Stanford University and former Clayman Institute faculty fellow, examined the questions used to measure sex on four of the largest and longest-running social science surveys, including the GSS. In an article published in Gender & Society in 2015, they critiqued survey questions for treating sex and gender as equivalent, immutable, and easily identified by others. According to Saperstein, precisely measuring sex and gender is an essential step in drawing attention to issues, like discrimination, faced by transgender and gender non-binary people. Saperstein said, “Whether we like it or not, numbers are what convince policymakers, what people turn to when they’re trying to make powerful rhetorical arguments about why something matters. They want a percentage.” Yet previously available data did not allow researchers to measure the size of the transgender and gender non-binary populations, let alone determine whether they are disadvantaged.

In the spring of 2014, Saperstein and Westbrook submitted a proposal to the GSS Board of Overseers to add several new questions related to sex and gender to the 2016 survey. Among these questions was a so-called two-step gender question, which asked respondents to separately identify the sex they were assigned at birth and their current gender. To illustrate that these questions were valid, Saperstein and Westbrook pre-tested the questions using national surveys. ( Their pre-test data is publicly available at openICPSR.) According to Saperstein, the board was unable to add their proposed questions to the 2016 GSS because of budgetary constraints.

Other sociologists had similar concerns about the sex measure on the GSS. D’Lane Compton, associate professor of sociology at the University of New Orleans, Kristen Schilt, associate professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, and Danya Lagos, doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Chicago, submitted a proposal to add questions to the 2018 GSS. In addition to proposing several attitudinal questions, they advocated for the two-step gender question. Using previously published studies and other datasets, they provided evidence  to the members of the GSS Board of Overseers that the two-step question was reliable. Brian Powell, professor of sociology at Indiana University Bloomington and then-board member, said board members were concerned about measurement error—for instance, resulting from respondents misunderstanding the question—and small sample size. Still, many board members were convinced that the sex question historically used by the GSS did not accurately reflect the experience of some people in the United States and needed to be changed. “I think it’s worth it, and the board thought it was worth it,” Powell said.

The two-step gender question was adopted by the board and fielded in 2018. The adoption represents, in Powell’s words, a “truly collective effort” between the sociologists who advocated for the change, the GSS Board of Overseers, the GSS principal investigators, funders of the GSS such as the National Science Foundation, and NORC, the independent research organization at the University of Chicago that runs the GSS. Westbrook credits a number of researchers for advocating for the change in recent years, including Clayman Institute Director Shelley J. Correll and Stanford Professor (Emerita) of Social Sciences Cecilia Ridgeway, as well as Powell, Compton, Schilt and Lagos.

The two-step gender question was fielded to just over 1,400 respondents. The first question reads, “What sex were you assigned at birth? (For example, on your birth certificate)” and allows respondents to select “Female,” “Male,” “Intersex,” or “No answer.” The second question asks, “What is your current gender?” Respondents were able to select “Woman,” “Man,” “Transgender,” “A gender not listed here,” and “No answer.”

The 2018 data was released in March of this year, so researchers already can access its more than 1,000 variables, including the new two-step gender question. Saperstein said that nine, or 0.6%, of the 1,397 respondents who answered the two-step gender questions can be considered transgender or gender non-binary. Saperstein noted that, because of the small sample size, the data cannot yet be used to answer the most pressing, statistical questions about the transgender and gender non-binary populations. Researchers will have to wait for future data releases, which also will include the two-step gender question. For now, Saperstein said, “Just having the questions on the survey offers a different kind of a power, a kind of symbolic power that recognizes the actual gender diversity of the population.” 

The data eventually can be used to assess any disadvantages transgender and gender non-binary people are experiencing, which can be used to shape public policy. Compton, the sociologist from the University of New Orleans, said, “I think if we want to make real change and have resources and rights, we do need to have these numbers. Those are important.” 

(photo by Zackary Drucker for The Gender Spectrum Collection)

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25 Ways to Write Gender Survey Questions

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In the past, it was somewhat easier to binarily categorize an individual as either male or female, gender-wise. These days, you may not be able to tell a person's gender or sexual orientation without asking or carrying out a gender survey. 

As we usher in a new decade, it is important to note that you simply cannot assume that an individual fits into predetermined sexual or gender constructs. This is why carrying out a gender survey has become common practice; especially in formal environments. 

Carrying out a gender survey is no mean task hence; it is important to know the kind of questions that should be contained in your survey plus other necessary information. If your gender survey puts respondents in a box, you may not achieve the most objective results at the end of the day. 

Importance of Gender Survey

Gender is ever-evolving and clearly one of the most discussed issues of our time. People who subscribe to gender identities that are not male or female are often looking for a medium to express the realities of their gender identities and this is what a gender survey offers. 

Gender surveys help organizations to accurately profile the gender spectra of their workforce and to develop gender-inclusive policies that cater to all genders present.

Gender surveys are important in institutions of learning because they help the school authorities to understand the gender balance, and how to protect minority gender identities from harassment and bullying. 

By carrying out a gender survey, you would gain more insight into the peculiarities of each gender identity. Gender surveys, in the end, help people of different gender identities to have a sense of inclusiveness in their societies. 

Types of Questions to Use for Gender Surveys

Close ended questions.

 A close-ended question is a type of question that limits the respondent to a few possible answers. This type of question typically requires survey respondents to choose from a limited set of predetermined responses which are already provided in the survey. 

There are different types of close-ended questions that you can include in your gender survey. Examples include dichotomous questions, multiple-choice questions that require respondents to choose from provided options and rating scale questions which assign a qualitative measure to a particular gender concept or ideology. 

Examples of Close-ended Questions 

• What is your current gender identity?
• Trans-males
• Trans-female
• Are you bi-sexual?

• For how long have you been trans-female? 
• 10-20 years
• More than 20 years

Open-Ended Questions

An open-ended question is a type of question that does not limit respondents to a range of predetermined answers. This type of question allows respondents to fully express themselves and provide thoughtful, deliberate, and sometimes, lengthy answers to gender survey questions.

The responses provided to open-ended questions can be up to a paragraph long or even an essay. Open-ended questions allow you to gain better insight into the respondent's thoughts, feelings and perceptions, and valuable information about the subject at hand. 

Examples of Open-ended Questions

• Describe a scenario where you were discriminated against because of your gender.
• What was it like when you found out you were gay?
• How do you deal with gender discrimination? 

Rating Questions

A rating question is a type of question that requires respondents to provide answers to survey questions by scaling these answers. It is a common type of question that allows survey respondents to rank their disposition towards the issues raised in the survey. 

Examples of Rating Questions  

• How would you rate the overall disposition of your gender identity?
• Not acceptable
• Mildly acceptable
• Very acceptable 
• How would you rate the level of gender bias in your immediate environment? 
• Non-existent
• Neutral 

Tips for Asking Gender Questions in Survey 

• Leave a Way Out

While drafting gender questions in a survey, it is important to always keep at the back of your mind the fact that gender is a spectrum. As such, you may not be able to fully reflect all gender types in your questions.

To avoid the problem of excluding persons of certain genders in your survey which may result in survey bias, it is best to leave a way out in your questions. Always include neutral options such as "others" or "doesn't apply" to avoid night survey dropout rates. 

• Don't Be Afraid to Ask

The essence of a survey is to get people's honest opinions about important issues such as gender.  Contrary to what is believed, people are quite enthusiastic about responding to well-crafted SOGI questions, in fact, people are more likely to skip questions about personal income than gender. 

The trick, however, is to carefully word your questions so that they are not partial, biased or judgmental. People want to talk about gender but more importantly, they need to feel safe responding to questions about their gender or sexual orientation. 

• Understand Your Audience

As earlier indicated, gender is socially defined and certain gender identities such as trans-male and trans-female are not formally recognized in many African and Asian societies. In this vein, it is important to craft gender questions in a survey; bearing in mind the gender stereotypes applicable in your survey environments. 

Transgender or queer gender questions and options might not be applicable to surveys in Africa or Asia as much as they are in Europe and America. Always research on the gender laws and stereotypes in a country before creating SOGI questions.  

• Don’t Ask Except It’s Important

 Gender is as private as it gets already as such, there's no need to ask questions that probe unnecessarily into the personal lives of the respondents. Unless you plan to actually make use of the survey response data from a particular gender question, there's no reason to include it in your survey. 

Sensitive gender questions in your survey may lead to high survey dropout rates or survey bias. When you ask the right questions, you would get meaningful insight into different gender identities and sexual orientations. 

Read more about asking gender questions in a demographic survey 

Gender Survey Questions Examples

• Prefer to self describe
• Prefer not to say  
• Androsexual
• Prefer to self describe 
• Prefer not to say 
• Prefer not to say
• 10-15 years
• 15-20 years
• 20 years and above
• Highlight the stereotypes commonly faced due to your gender identity. 
• Non-conforming
• What triggered your change of gender identity?
• Government institutions
• Prefer to self-describe 
• Prefer to self-describe
• 10 years and above
• How did you find out you were bi-sexual?
• What support systems do you have as a trans-male?
• What support systems do you have as a trans-female? 

What is Sex?

Sex refers to the biological, genetic, and physiological factors that typically define individuals as being male, female, or hermaphrodite. According to MedicalNewsToday , sex can be viewed as the biological differences between males and females, such as the genitalia and genetic differences.

This means that sex is strictly a biological construct that is determined naturally during the conception process. It is important to note that in many instances, an individual's biologically assigned sexual orientation may not tally with his or her preferred gender identity. 

Also, there are some individuals who embody male and female biological and physiological features. Such individuals are referred to as hermaphrodites or intersex. 

What is Gender?  

Gender is a social phenomenon that consists of a range of socially defined characteristics of masculinity and femininity. According to the Swiss Agency of Development and Control , gender is determined by the conception of tasks, functions, and roles attributed to women and men in society.

It is a flexible concept that typically differs from one society to another and can be changed over time. It is important to note that gender is a social spectrum that encompasses a wide range of possibilities between and beyond masculinity and femininity. 

While many societies attempt to create a correspondence between one's sex and gender identity, it is important to note that this is not always the case. An individual may be born male but subscribe to femininity with regards to his gender and vice versa. 

Differences between Sex and Gender

• Sex is biologically-defined while gender is socially constructed. One's sex is almost always determined at conception and is a function of hormones, chromosomes, and other physiological features while one's gender is defined by social norms, beliefs, and preferences.
• Sex is almost always binary while gender is a spectrum. 
• Sex is due to nature while gender results from socio-cultural nurturing.
• Gender is flexible while sex is mostly fixed. 

Types of Gender

 Male is a gender type that is in line with masculinity and is typically used to refer to individuals (men and boys) who are physiologically and biologically constructed as male. Males have XY chromosomes and embody other genetically defined characteristics of maleness. 

Males are cisgenders because they align with the social conditioning of their sex. In many societies, males are expected to be natural leaders, strong, aggressive, logically-driven, ambitious, sexual, physical, wealth-oriented, bold, risk-takers and emotionally-independent individuals, unlike their female counterparts. 

Female is a gender type that aligns with femininity and is typically used to define individuals (women and girls) who are physiologically and genetically conditioned as female. Females have XX chromosomes and embody other biological criteria that define femaleness. 

Females are cisgenders because they align with the gender stereotype of their sex. In many societies, females are socially conditioned to be weak, subservient, domesticated, emotionally-driven, emotionally-dependent, submissive, withdrawn, careful, sexually-appealing and fragile, unlike their male counterparts. 

Transmale is a gender type for individuals who are born female and identify as male. In other words, it refers to an individual who was labeled female at birth but chooses to identify as male, gender-wise because she has a strong masculine identity. 

Trans males often undergo a process of gender reassignment or transitioning that may involve certain surgical procedures plus social dynamism, and allows them to fully integrate with their gender identity. In recent times, there has been a lot of advocacy for transmale inclusion and non-discrimination in society. 

• Trans-Female

Trans-female is a gender type that includes all male-to-female transgender individuals who are born male but choose femininity as their gender identity. Just like trans-males, trans-females often undergo gender reassignment or transitioning in order to fully integrate with their new identity. 

• Gender Queer

GenderQueer is a gender identity that typically defines individuals who do not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but instead, identifies as none, one or a combination of gender types. It refers to a spectrum of gender identities that are outside the conventional gender binary. 

GenderQueer is also referred to as non-conforming or non-binary and involves transitioning between and among gender identities of male and female. Individuals who identify as genderqueer maintain that their gender is fluid, flexible and can shift from time to time as they evolve.

Types of Sexual Orientation  

To be bi-sexual means being sexually attracted to both men and women. Bisexuality is a sexual orientation that defines people who are not exclusively physically and emotionally attracted to individuals of a particular gender type at different times of their lives. 

To be gay means to be attracted to an individual of the same sex as you are. According to the Australian Psychological Society , same-sex attraction is as normal and natural as heterosexual attraction; in fact, 1 in every 10 persons identify as gay.

To be asexual means to not experience any form of sexual attraction. Asexuality is a sexual orientation that defines individuals who are not interested in having penetrative or non-penetrative sex. with another individual even if they find such a person physically attractive. 

This sexual orientation refers to people in the asexual spectrum who only experience sexual or emotional attraction in certain situations. Such situations may involve after they must have formed a strong emotional or romantic connection with a partner.

• Other types of sexual orientation include pansexual , bi-curious , allosexual , aromantic , androsexual . 

Why Should You Use Formplus for Gender Surveys? 

Formplus is an online data gathering platform that you can use to collect and process form responses in real-time. This platform allows you to create different types of gender surveys and share them with multiple persons at the same time. 

It has a unique customization feature that allows you to personalize your surveys, and include background images, preferred color themes, logos, image fields, and custom integrations. You can modify the Formplus survey template to gather gender survey responses from your target audience. 

With Formplus, you can swiftly analyze survey responses by downloading survey response data as CSV files directly. This makes it easier to sort gender survey responses. 

As with other types of surveys , having the right questions goes a long way to determine the success of your survey. Gender is a sensitive survey niche because it often involves individuals revealing information that is personal to them. 

Therefore, it is best to always craft gender surveys to be objective, professional and straight to the point. In this article, we've highlighted a number of important information that you should always remember when it comes to creating gender survey questions. 

More importantly, it is best to create online gender surveys using data-gathering platforms like Formplus because online gender surveys are easier to administer, track and analyze. Visit Formplus today to create your unique and personalized online gender survey forms. 

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How to Create a Survey

How to ask about gender in a survey 

Table of Contents

Why it’s important to ask about gender in a survey

1. only ask about sex and gender when it’s necessary for your research project, 2. let respondents know that you’ll keep their data confidential, 3. let respondents know how you’ll protect their data, 4. use inclusive language and design, 5. ask about gender and sexual orientation separately, 6. keep sex and gender questions separate as well, 7. allow respondents to self-describe with answer fields or dropdown questions, 8. use conditional logic to create a personalized survey experience, how to use jotform to create a gender-inclusive survey, how to write gender questions for a survey.

• Only ask about sex and gender when it’s necessary for your research project 
• Let respondents know that you’ll keep their data confidential
• Let respondents know how you’ll protect their data 
• Use inclusive language and design 
• Ask about gender and sexual orientation separately 
• Keep sex and gender questions separate as well 
• Allow respondents to self-describe with answer fields or dropdown questions
• Use conditional logic to create a personalized survey experience 

The appropriate way to ask about gender in a survey has become progressively more important in the past several years. According to a January 2024 article titled “ Measuring the Growth of Gender-Inclusive Surveys Around the World ” in Survey Practice , an e-journal published by the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the use of gender questions with more than two answer options increased between 2012 and 2022.  

Researchers uncovered some important facts:

• In the United States, 64 percent of surveys included three or more gender categories in gender survey questions by 2022, up from 16 percent 2012.
• In Canada, 80 percent of surveys included three or more gender categories in survey questions by 2022, an increase of 59 percent since 2012. 
• The use of non-binary gender answer options on surveys also increased in several other countries in that 10-year time span, including Australia, the UK, France, the Netherlands, and Brazil, among others, according to researchers.

While researchers haven’t conclusively determined one “right” way to ask gender questions on a survey, there are a number of reliable best practices that are important to follow in order to ensure accurate survey results and foster inclusivity. More on that later.

In this article, we’ll share when and why you may need to ask questions about gender, discuss how to ask about gender in a survey in a way that’s inclusive and respectful, and review how Jotform can help you create a gender-inclusive survey.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines sex as a “biological construct based on anatomy, physiology, genetics, and hormones” and gender as “a multidimensional construct that encompasses gender identity and expression, as well as social and cultural expectations about status, characteristics, and behavior as they are associated with certain sex traits.” Put simply, while sex is assigned at birth, gender is shaped by cultural expectations, family dynamics, societal norms, and other factors.

Gender is an essential part of a person’s identity, and since the factors mentioned above shape identity, gender questions that offer a range of gender identity options — rather than a binary male or female answer option — will capture more accurate data, which will ensure more reliable results in research projects.

Asking about gender in a survey is important when you need to gather meaningful, nuanced demographic data that leads to actionable insights. For example, in healthcare, where sex and gender influence health and disease, precision is especially important. Other categories where gender is particularly relevant include research about labor markets, consumer markets, organizational culture, and city planning, among others.

Let’s consider a few other reasons to ask gender-inclusive survey questions:

• Gender is more complex than the binary options of male or female. Adding more answer options means a wider array of experiences will be included, improving data accuracy and representation.
• Gender-specific data allows for more informed decision-making about policies and programs meant to address disparities among gender groups.
• Accurate gender data is important for studying trends and behaviors that differ by gender.
• Including gender questions that provide a range of gender identity answer options promotes inclusivity and fairness; not providing these options could be seen as exclusionary.
• Gender questions with inclusive answer options help respondents feel respected, included, and validated, which may, in turn, increase survey participation. 
• An inclusive survey that collects data on a wider array of experiences and gender expressions can help avoid inherent biases that happen when presenting binary male/female answer options.

How to ask about gender in a survey: Tips and best practices

Knowing precisely how to ask about gender in a survey can be a challenge. The following eight tips for creating a gender-inclusive survey can help.

If you’re asking about gender, explain at the outset why you’re collecting this data and how you’ll use it.

Don’t forget to make it clear that you won’t share respondents’ data with others. You can also make questions that ask about sex, gender, or sexuality optional.

Assure respondents that their data is safe. You can do this at the beginning of the survey, in the section where you address why you’re collecting this data and how you’ll use it. For example, you could share information about the specific security features of the survey software you’re using.

Design your surveys using gender-neutral language that includes all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sex, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation, etc.

If you’re asking about gender, avoid binary male/female answer options. If you plan to ask a question about both sex and gender, the Survey Practice article previously referenced recommends the following language:

• Transgender
• I don’t identify as female, male, or transgender.

Other inclusive answer options could include

• Genderqueer
• Genderfluid
• Gender non-conforming 
• Prefer not to say
• Other (with an open text field for respondents to fill out, if desired)

You can learn more about sexual orientation and gender identity terminology from the Human Rights Campaign .

Combining gender identity and sexual orientation into one question is problematic because these are two distinct facets of an individual’s identity.

As previously discussed, gender is a social construct shaped by cultural expectations, family dynamics, and societal norms, among other factors. On the other hand, sexual orientation is defined in the Human Rights Campaign’s glossary of terms as “an inherent or immutable enduring emotional, romantic or sexual attraction to other people. Note: an individual’s sexual orientation is independent of their gender identity.”

Gender and sex assigned at birth are also different concepts. Ask about these characteristics separately if you choose to ask about both in a survey.

Fill-in-the-blank or write-in options are a great way to offer survey participants flexibility in answering using their preferred terms.

For example, you could pose the following question using a dropdown format with an option for respondents to provide their own terms:

• Gender: How do you identify?
• I prefer to describe myself as: ___________________________________

Conditional logic allows survey respondents to skip questions that are irrelevant to them according to their answers to previous questions. This feature lets you tailor the survey experience to each respondent’s identity, making it more inclusive.

Jotform offers free gender survey templates that you can customize to meet your exact needs. Participants will be able to select their gender identity, gender expression, and gender role. Add or remove fields with the drag-and-drop form builder, upload your logo, add custom questions, and choose new fonts and text colors for a personalized touch.

With various form fields, you can also give participants space to explain their answers. For example, after asking a question about gender,  you can easily add a “self-describe” option by setting up a long-text field .

And finally, use Jotform’s conditional logic feature to create an interactive survey. By setting up conditional logic based on participant answers, your respondents can skip questions that aren’t relevant to them and enjoy a much more personalized survey experience.

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Adapting how we ask about the gender of our survey respondents

Ashley Amaya

Pew Research Center: Decoded

Knowing the gender of our survey respondents is critical to a variety of analyses we do at Pew Research Center. Gender affects how a person sees and is seen by the world. It’s predictive of things like voting behavior , the wage gap and household responsibilities .

On nearly all surveys we conduct in the United States, we ask people, “Are you male or female?” (Or, in Spanish: ¿Es usted hombre o mujer? ) While this wording has been the standard question we’ve used for years, we wondered if we could find a new way to ask about gender that would acknowledge changing norms around gender identity and improve data quality and accuracy, while still maintaining the neutrality that defines the Center.

We organized a research team to answer this question and — if the answer turned out to be yes — determine how we might modify the way we ask about respondents’ gender. Ultimately, we settled on a new version of the question: “Do you describe yourself as a man, a woman, or in some other way?” (Or, in Spanish: ¿Se describe a sí mismo(a) como un hombre, una mujer o de alguna otra manera? )

Here, we detail how and why we came to this decision.

We considered attitudes, laws and best practices in research

Gender is a social construct based on how people see themselves and how others see them. Sex, by contrast, is a biological construct assigned at birth. An estimated 1.4 million U.S. adults are transgender, which is defined in this post as people who identify as neither a man nor a woman (sometimes people in this group use the term “nonbinary”) or those who identify with a gender different from the sex they were assigned at birth . (It is worth noting that some people in this group might use terms other than “transgender” to describe themselves.) Roughly one-in-five U.S. adults know someone who uses a gender neutral pronoun such as “they” instead of “he” or “she,” and 17 states and the District of Columbia have adapted to this evolution in gender identity by adding a nonbinary option to driver’s licenses.

Other survey researchers have also begun adapting their gender questions. Some surveys ask a two-step question to determine both sex assigned at birth and current gender identity. Others ask whether a respondent is male or female and whether they self-identify as transgender. Meanwhile, qualitative research has looked at the best terms to use when asking about gender identity.

Given that many Americans view gender in a way that is more complex than can be captured in just the two response options of “male” and “female,” adding a third option could improve data accuracy by ensuring the data are representative and inclusive of all types of voices. Proponents of a third gender response option may also perceive the lack of such an option as exclusionary. On the other hand, the Center was concerned that adding a third option could possibly alienate the 56% of U.S. adults who said in a 2018 survey that forms or online profiles should not include an option other than “man” and “woman.” If either group stopped participating in our surveys, it would introduce bias and harm data quality. Another consideration was how a third gender response option would translate into Spanish. The Center’s surveys are almost always conducted in both English and Spanish, and little existing research has addressed how to phrase a revised gender question in Spanish.

Prior research informed our new gender identity question

In previous studies , researchers have conducted a variety of tests about the best way to ask about gender. Informed by this research, we decided to make our starting point the question wording used in the National Crime Victimization Survey : “Do you currently describe yourself as male, female or transgender?” We then made two changes based on previous research.

First, we replaced “transgender” with the phrase “in some other way.” Some people who identify as neither male nor female do not identify with the term “transgender,” instead preferring “nonbinary,” “genderfluid” or other terms. “Transgender” also isn’t necessarily mutually exclusive from “male” and “female.” For example, some people consider themselves both male and transgender. In addition, there is no Spanish equivalent of “transgender,” and around three-in-ten U.S. adults do not have a clear understanding of what “transgender” means.

Second, we replaced “male” and “female” with “a man” and “a woman.” The words “male” and “female” refer to a person’s biology or sex , while the words “man” and “woman” are cultural terms that are more consistent with the concept of gender.

We conducted an experiment to address outstanding concerns

In June and July 2020, we conducted an online opt-in survey of 5,903 internet panelists to test two alternative gender question options in English and Spanish. A total of 4,931 responded in English and 972 responded in Spanish. The survey took an average of 12 minutes to complete and included questions about the coronavirus outbreak, political approval and other demographics.

Respondents were randomly assigned to receive one of three sets of gender questions after receiving other demographic questions. One group of respondents (n=1,654) received the standard Pew Research Center question. Another group (n=2,611) received a question about sex, followed by a question about gender:

1. “Were you born male or female?” ( ¿Su sexo al nacer fue masculino o femenino? )

2. “Do you describe yourself as a man, a woman, or in some other way?” ( ¿Se describe a sí mismo(a) como un hombre, una mujer o de alguna otra manera? ) The phrase “some other way” also included a text box for respondent specification.

In asking these questions, it was especially important that we minimized the number of adults who might incorrectly be classified as transgender. Since the U.S. transgender population is small, estimates of the size of this population might be artificially inflated even if a small number of respondents accidentally chose the wrong answer. To minimize this error, we asked a third follow-up question of those whose responses to these two questions did not match:

3. “Just to confirm, you were born [male/female] and now describe yourself [as a man/as a woman/in some other way]. Is that correct?” ( Solo para confirmar, su sexo al nacer fue [masculino/femenino] y ahora se describe a sí mismo(a) [como hombre/como mujer/de otra manera]. ¿Es eso correcto? )

If respondents said their answers were not recorded correctly, they were given the opportunity to re-answer both questions.

A final group (n=1,638) received the same questions as the second group, but in reverse order; they received the question about gender identity before the question about sex assigned at birth. This group was also asked to confirm if their answers to the two questions didn’t match.

At the end of the survey, immediately following the gender/sex questions, we asked all respondents whether they thought our questions were biased (and, if so, why), followed by two questions about their views on transgender rights and offering a third gender option on forms and online profiles.

Unweighted estimates from this experiment are sprinkled throughout the remainder of this post. While opt-in samples are not ideal for creating point estimates, they are useful when comparing experimental wording conditions, as was the purpose here. To further improve comparability and to ensure we had reliable estimates, we also implemented a series of quotas and included an oversample of less-acculturated Hispanics (as determined by a combination of language skills, years living in the U.S., type of media consumption and self-described cultural affiliation).

Data quality improved with the new gender question

Regardless of the way in which we asked respondents their sex/gender, we observed consistent distributions among men and women, suggesting little effect of the question wording for most people. However, among English-speaking adults who received the new gender questions, 1.5% selected the third, nonbinary response option or chose a gender inconsistent with their sex, suggesting that the inclusion of the third option had the intended effect on being more inclusive and improving data accuracy.

There was some concern that people who consider themselves a man or woman may not wish to be defined by their gender and instead opt for the third option and write in a non-gender term to describe themselves, such as “human” or “mother” or “scientist.” A large number of these types of responses would have suggested that the revised question would introduce error and hurt data quality. Luckily, we only observed four of these types of responses among English speakers, affecting the estimate by 0.1 percentage point and suggesting that it was not a problem.

Providing a third gender option didn’t alienate people

Fewer English-speaking respondents to our 2020 survey said they opposed the inclusion of a third gender response option on forms or online profiles (44%) than in our 2018 survey. However, 44% is still a substantial share of respondents. We were concerned that opponents would find our new, more inclusive question off-putting. This concern did not appear in the data. Fewer than 1% opted not to answer the gender question.

The revised gender question also didn’t cause more people to stop taking the survey before completing it. No more than 0.5% of English-speaking respondents across all experimental conditions opted to stop participating at or after the sex and gender questions.

The revised questions also did not appear to be affecting the Center’s credibility as a nonpartisan research organization. When asked whether respondents thought the survey was politically neutral, about three-in-four English speakers said the survey was not at all or not very biased, regardless of which gender questions they received.

The new gender question worked in Spanish, too

A small proportion of Spanish-speaking respondents (3.6%) opted for the third gender choice or chose a gender inconsistent with their sex. While this was significantly higher than the estimate among English speakers (1.5%), both English and Spanish speakers were asked to confirm their choice if sex and gender responses did not match. Spanish speakers consistently confirmed their answers to both sex and gender. Moreover, when asked if they found any questions confusing, only six Spanish speakers mentioned the gender question wording, and none of the six were coded as transgender.

Similar to English-speaking respondents, Spanish speakers did not seem to be affected by the various question wordings. And the addition of a third option had no perceivable alienation effect. Some 40% of Spanish speakers said they disapproved of the addition of a third gender choice on forms, but the addition of a third response category to the gender question did not cause more people to stop participating in the survey prematurely, nor did it affect the proportion of Spanish-speakers who perceived the survey as somewhat or very biased.

Asking about sex in addition to gender wasn’t necessary

While our experiment used a two-step question to deduce both a respondent’s sex and gender, moving forward, we will limit most of the Center’s U.S. surveys to the single gender question referenced at the top of this post.

Based on comments collected at the end of our experiment, fewer than 1% of respondents mentioned the sex and gender questions in any way. Among those who did, 30% expressed frustration over the presence of multiple questions or concern about the use of the term “born” in the question on sex. Also, the inclusion of a question about respondent’s sex isn’t necessary for most of the Center’s research, which focuses predominantly on gender. And while we do construct weights based on population estimates by sex, the correlation between gender and sex suggests that gender can reliably be used as a proxy for sex for this purpose. Another important consideration is respondents’ time: If we don’t need to ask a question, we won’t.

In conclusion, this change in how we ask about gender was not taken lightly, as we were driven to ensure inclusivity and accuracy while maintaining the rigorousness and neutrality that characterizes the Center.

This post was written by Ashley Amaya, Emily A. Vogels and Anna Brown of Pew Research Center. Ashley Amaya is a senior survey research methodologist. Emily A. Vogels is a research associate focusing on internet and technology. Anna Brown is a research associate focusing on social and demographic trends.

Written by Ashley Amaya

Ashley Amaya is a senior survey research methodologist at Pew Research Center

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How to Ask Gender on Surveys

Gender used to be one of the easiest questions to write for a survey. There was male and there was female, so we simply asked: “Which are you?” But our culture has begun acknowledging the fluidity of gender identity and gender assignment, and now, too, must survey research. Just this week we had a potential survey respondent send us a note expressing a willingness to participate, but getting stuck at the gender question because neither male nor female applied.

But how should we start asking about gender? That is a big, and as yet, unresolved, question. Federal agencies like the Census Bureau are just starting to explore the issue. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has convened a group of research experts (The Federal Interagency Working Group on Measuring Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) to lay out a long-term research agenda and program to explore and resolve the issue for ongoing federal data collection efforts.

In the meantime, we can turn to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, which has been pioneering efforts “to increase population-based data about transgender people and other gender minorities by advancing the development of sex and gender-related measures (i.e., sex assigned at birth, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status) for population-based surveys, with a particular consideration for publicly-funded data collection efforts.”

Here’s what they suggest in their 2014 report, Best Practices for Asking Questions to Identify Transgender and Other Gender Minority Respondents on Population-Based Surveys :

When two demographic items can be added to an adult survey (or, in most instances, a standing measure of sex replaced and a measure of current gender identity added), we recommend including measures of self-reported assigned sex at birth and current gender identity. Testing shows that the “two step” approach appears the most likely to have high sensitivity, as well as high specificity, with adults.

By Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

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100 Gender Research Topics For Academic Papers

Gender research topics are very popular across the world. Students in different academic disciplines are often asked to write papers and essays about these topics. Some of the disciplines that require learners to write about gender topics include:

Sociology Psychology Gender studies Business studies

When pursuing higher education in these disciplines, learners can choose what to write about from a wide range of gender issues topics. However, the wide range of issues that learners can research and write about when it comes to gender makes choosing what to write about difficult. Here is a list of the top 100 gender and sexuality topics that students can consider.

Controversial Gender Research Topics

Do you like the idea of writing about something controversial? If yes, this category has some of the best gender topics to write about. They touch on issues like gender stereotypes and issues that are generally associated with members of a specific gender. Here are some of the best controversial gender topics that you can write about.

• How human behavior is affected by gender misconceptions
• How are straight marriages influenced by gay marriages
• Explain the most common sex-role stereotypes
• What are the effects of workplace stereotypes?
• What issues affect modern feminism?
• How sexuality affects sex-role stereotyping
• How does the media break sex-role stereotypes
• Explain the dual approach to equality between women and men
• What are the most outdated sex-role stereotypes
• Are men better than women?
• How equal are men and women?
• How do politics and sexuality relate?
• How can films defy gender-based stereotypes
• What are the advantages of being a woman?
• What are the disadvantages of being a woman?
• What are the advantages of being a man?
• Discuss the disadvantages of being a woman
• Should governments legalize prostitution?
• Explain how sexual orientation came about?
• Women communicate better than men
• Women are the stronger sex
• Explain how the world can be made better for women
• Discuss the future gender norms
• How important are sex roles in society
• Discuss the transgender and feminism theory
• How does feminism help in the creation of alternative women’s culture?
• Gender stereotypes in education and science
• Discuss racial variations when it comes to gender-related attitudes
• Women are better leaders
• Men can’t survive without women

This category also has some of the best gender debate topics. However, learners should be keen to pick topics they are interested in. This will enable them to ensure that they enjoy the research and writing process.

Interesting Gender Inequality Topics

Gender-based inequality is witnessed almost every day. As such, most learners are conversant with gender inequality research paper topics. However, it’s crucial to pick topics that are devoid of discrimination of members of a specific gender. Here are examples of gender inequality essay topics.

• Sex discrimination aspects in schools
• How to identify inequality between sexes
• Sex discrimination causes
• The inferior role played by women in relationships
• Discuss sex differences in the education system
• How can gender discrimination be identified in sports?
• Can inequality issues between men and women be solved through education?
• Why are professional opportunities for women in sports limited?
• Why are there fewer women in leadership positions?
• Discuss gender inequality when it comes to work-family balance
• How does gender-based discrimination affect early childhood development?
• Can sex discrimination be reduced by technology?
• How can sex discrimination be identified in a marriage?
• Explain where sex discrimination originates from
• Discuss segregation and motherhood in labor markets
• Explain classroom sex discrimination
• How can inequality in American history be justified?
• Discuss different types of sex discrimination in modern society
• Discuss various factors that cause gender-based inequality
• Discuss inequality in human resource practices and processes
• Why is inequality between women and men so rampant in developing countries?
• How can governments bridge gender gaps between women and men?
• Work-home conflict is a sign of inequality between women and men
• Explain why women are less wealthy than men
• How can workplace gender-based inequality be addressed?

After choosing the gender inequality essay topics they like, students should research, brainstorm ideas, and come up with an outline before they start writing. This will ensure that their essays have engaging introductions and convincing bodies, as well as, strong conclusions.

Amazing Gender Roles Topics for Academic Papers and Essays

This category has ideas that slightly differ from gender equality topics. That’s because equality or lack of it can be measured by considering the representation of both genders in different roles. As such, some gender roles essay topics might not require tiresome and extensive research to write about. Nevertheless, learners should take time to gather the necessary information required to write about these topics. Here are some of the best gender topics for discussion when it comes to the roles played by men and women in society.

• Describe gender identity
• Describe how a women-dominated society would be
• Compare gender development theories
• How equally important are maternity and paternity levees for babies?
• How can gender-parity be achieved when it comes to parenting?
• Discuss the issues faced by modern feminism
• How do men differ from women emotionally?
• Discuss gender identity and sexual orientation
• Is investing in the education of girls beneficial?
• Explain the adoption of gender-role stereotyped behaviors
• Discuss games and toys for boys and girls
• Describe patriarchal attitudes in families
• Explain patriarchal stereotypes in family relationships
• What roles do women and men play in politics?
• Discuss sex equity and academic careers
• Compare military career opportunities for both genders
• Discuss the perception of women in the military
• Describe feminine traits
• Discus gender-related issues faced by women in gaming
• Men should play major roles in the welfare of their children
• Explain how the aging population affects the economic welfare of women?
• What has historically determined modern differences in gender roles?
• Does society need stereotyped gender roles?
• Does nature have a role to play in stereotyped gender roles?
• The development and adoption of gender roles

The list of gender essay topics that are based on the roles of each sex can be quite extensive. Nevertheless, students should be keen to pick interesting gender topics in this category.

Important Gender Issues Topics for Research Paper

If you want to write a paper or essay on an important gender issue, this category has the best ideas for you. Students can write about different issues that affect individuals of different genders. For instance, this category can include gender wage gap essay topics. Wage variation is a common issue that affects women in different countries. Some of the best gender research paper topics in this category include:

• Discuss gender mainstreaming purpose
• Discuss the issue of gender-based violence
• Why is the wage gap so common in most countries?
• How can society promote equality in opportunities for women and men in sports?
• Explain what it means to be transgender
• Discuss the best practices of gender-neutral management
• What is women’s empowerment?
• Discuss how human trafficking affects women
• How problematic is gender-blindness for women?
• What does the glass ceiling mean in management?
• Why are women at a higher risk of sexual exploitation and violence?
• Why is STEM uptake low among women?
• How does ideology affect the determination of relations between genders
• How are sporting women fighting for equality?
• Discuss sports, women, and media institutions
• How can cities be made safer for girls and women?
• Discuss international trends in the empowerment of women
• How do women contribute to the world economy?
• Explain how feminism on different social relations unites men and women as groups
• Explain how gender diversity influence scientific discovery and innovation

This category has some of the most interesting women’s and gender studies paper topics. However, most of them require extensive research to come up with hard facts and figures that will make academic papers or essays more interesting.

Students in high schools and colleges can pick what to write about from a wide range of gender studies research topics. However, some gender studies topics might not be ideal for some learners based on the given essay prompt. Therefore, make sure that you have understood what the educator wants you to write about before you pick a topic. Our experts can help you choose a good thesis topic . Choosing the right gender studies topics enables learners to answer the asked questions properly. This impresses educators to award them top grades.

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• Posted in in ESL Conversation Questions

40 discussion questions about gender and gender roles

• Posted by by Cameron Smith
• 2 years ago
• Updated 3 weeks ago

Practice your English speaking skills and engage in lively conversations with these discussion questions about gender and gender roles .

When actress Emma Watson addressed the UN , she famously said “It is time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideas.” It will be fascinating to see how you and your speaking partners feel about this important topic.

40 discussion questions about gender

• What are some differences between men and women?
• What are some similarities between men and women?
• Do you identify as one gender?
• What are your pronouns?
• Do you believe that gender is a construct? Why or why not?
• What are some gender stereotypes that men deal with?
• What are some gender stereotypes that women deal with?
• Do you think that single-sex or co-ed schools are better for students?
• What obligations does a father have to his family, if any?
• What obligations does a mother have to her family, if any?
• Can a mother fulfill a father’s obligations?
• Can father fulfill a mother’s obligations?
• Were gender roles traditional in your childhood home?
• Are women better than men at certain things?
• Are men better than women at certain things?
• Would you prefer to have a female boss, or a male boss? Why?
• Do you prefer to have female or male colleagues? Why?
• List as many male-dominated industries as you can.
• List as many female-dominated industries as you can.
• Do you agree with women fighting in the military? Why or why not?
• Do you think that women should be able to 
• Do you relate to male or female friends more easily? Why?
• Are all genders treated equally or differently in your country?
• Do you think men or women make better leaders?
• Does a leader’s gender make a difference?
• Has your country ever had a female leader?
• Does your country have a “macho” culture?
• Does your country have different laws based on gender?
• Is it legal for people to change their gender in your country?
• Do you think gender roles are changing in your country?
• Is it okay for clubs and societies to exclude people based on their gender?
• What barriers do men and women face in the workplace?
• What challenges do men and women face in society?
• What challenges do non-binary persons face in society?
• What challenges do transgender persons face in society?
• Should parents raise children differently, based on each child’s gender?
• Do you think society treats boys and girls differently?
• Is it okay for a girl to be a tomboy ?
• Is it okay for a boy to play with dolls?
• How are you expected to behave because of your gender?
• Have you ever seen or experienced sexism? What happened?
• Have you ever seen or experienced chauvinism? What happened?
• Why does humanity typically depict gods and deities as men?

What other ESL conversation questions and ESL discussion topics would you like us to write about next?

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Cameron Smith

Cameron Smith is an English Communication Coach based in Vancouver, Canada. He's the founder of Learn English Every Day, and he's on a mission to help millions of people speak English with confidence. If you want longer video content, please follow me on YouTube for fun English lessons and helpful learning resources!

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• Posted in in Quizzes

5 fun quizzes to test your English vocabulary

• January 30, 2023

40 conversation questions about colors

The Myth of Female Unelectability

Today’s voters do not systematically discriminate against female candidates.

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Updated at 11:37 a.m. ET on August 13, 2024

Perhaps nothing has been more damaging to women running for office than the idea that voters simply won’t pick female candidates. There’s just one problem: It isn’t true.

After Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election, many people, including some of her top staffers and the unsuccessful Democratic nominee herself , concluded that she had been penalized for her gender . Even two years after the election, Jennifer Palmieri, her former communications director, argued that “I think that a man would have survived” the barriers Clinton faced, such as the scandal over her emails. Clinton continues to push this idea, saying as recently as May that some voters—women voters—had held her to an impossible standard and taken a chance on Donald Trump because he’s a man.

As the 2020 Democratic presidential-primary race took shape, many in the party were apprehensive about nominating a woman. Neera Tanden, then the president of the Center for American Progress and now President Joe Biden’s Domestic Policy Council director, worried that “there’s a fear that if misogyny beat Clinton, it can beat other women.” Several female candidates, including Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, competed for the nomination. When they lost, concerns about the power of sexism became even more entrenched .

But was the anxiety warranted? And is Harris, now the Democratic nominee, doomed to follow in Clinton’s footsteps? Although isolating the impact of gender is difficult—we’ll never know whether a Henry Clinton would have outperformed Hillary Clinton in 2016—existing research indicates that today’s voters do not systematically discriminate against women at the polls.

This isn’t to say that voters treat men and women the same when they run for office. Gender stereotypes abound, and women face attacks that men never would. And, of course, no woman has ever been elected president in the United States. But the research keeps getting clearer: Women can—and do—win. In large part, women win because even if voters hold sexist views, they also hold other views—on economic policy, abortion, immigration, and more. As the distance between the parties has grown on these issues, the cost of allowing sexism to turn you against your party’s nominee has also grown. Finally, a win for political polarization!

Many conversations about sexism and women in politics fail to distinguish between two questions: First, do women experience gender-based attacks when they run for office? And second, does being a woman make a candidate less likely to win an election?

The answer to the first is clearly yes. “It would be ridiculous and foolish to suggest that women don’t receive different attacks,” the Yale University political scientist Alexander Coppock told me. But, he added, “you have to hold that in your mind alongside the idea that every candidate—man, woman, nonbinary—[will be] attacked, and the precise content of that is going to vary depending on the opponent and the candidate themselves.”

People weren’t hallucinating gendered attacks on Clinton. Trump’s supporters really did wear shirts calling her a bitch . And just a brief perusal of X, TikTok, and other social-media platforms in the days following Harris’s entry into the current presidential race revealed abhorrent gender-based attacks on her too.

Historically, women did face an electoral penalty. Several studies found that, half a century ago, men tended to outpoll women in a number of Western democracies.

Adam Serwer: The racist, sexist attacks against Kamala Harris

Yet the penalty has disappeared. When Coppock and the political scientist Susanne Schwarz reviewed more recent research on voter attitudes toward women candidates, they found that the empirical evidence of voter bias was “surprisingly thin.” In 2022, Schwarz and Coppock published the results of their meta-analysis of 67 experiments from all over the world in which researchers asked survey respondents to choose among hypothetical candidates with varied demographic profiles. Schwarz and Coppock concluded that the average effect of being a woman is not a loss; rather, it’s a gain of approximately two percentage points.

Their conclusion wasn’t unusual. When Schwarz and Coppock looked closer at studies that also failed to find voters punishing female candidates, they realized that, time and again, the original researchers had been taken aback by their own findings, even as their field was zeroing in on a consensus.

To be sure, the recent literature doesn’t show that voters treat male and female candidates identically. As the political scientists Sarah Anzia and Rachel Bernhard wrote in a 2022 paper , “Some voters infer that women candidates are more liberal than men, more compassionate and collaborative, and more competent on certain issues like education.” Anzia and Bernhard’s paper reviewed local-election results and concluded that, on average, women have an advantage over men in city-council elections, but that this advantage declines in mayoral races. Male and female mayoral candidates win at essentially the same rates; however, when the authors compared candidates with similar levels of experience, men pulled ahead, a finding replicated in other studies.

Anzia and Bernhard also found that the more Republicans within a constituency, the greater the disadvantage to women. Schwarz and Coppock identified a similar effect. But are Republicans discriminating against women because they are women, or because they correctly intuit that, on average, women are more liberal than men? Interestingly, this dynamic may be strongest in downballot races—which are more likely to be nonpartisan and may receive little rigorous news coverage. The effects of stereotyping, Anzia and Bernhard wrote, “are largest in elections when voters tend to know less about local candidates.”

Harris, by skipping the traditional primary process in 2024, avoided one lingering way voters may punish female candidates at the ballot box. In a paper about “pragmatic bias” in the 2020 Democratic presidential-primary season, the sociologist Christianne Corbett, now at the University of Arkansas, and three colleagues surveyed likely Democratic-primary voters and found that respondents indeed expected that then-candidates Harris and Warren would have more difficulty beating Trump than Biden or Bernie Sanders would. The researchers found evidence that some voters who labeled Harris or Warren as their favorite candidate nevertheless said that they intended to vote for Biden or Sanders, at least in part because they thought a female candidate was unelectable.

But Corbett told me she can’t see how this would affect Harris in the general election. “The two candidates are so different,” she said. Party identification, she predicted, will overcome pragmatic bias. Although primary voters might reasonably conclude that Warren and Sanders would support most of the same policies if elected, few voters who support Harris’s positions would see Trump as an acceptable substitute.

Read: How Harris can tackle the Clinton factor

The political-science literature has some limits. Many of the most applicable studies that best control for the effect of gender in elections ask voters about hypothetical candidates. Until now, the sample size for real-life American major-party female presidential nominees was … one. The boundary between fair and unfair scrutiny of specific female candidates is difficult to define. For instance, one recent Time article saw evidence of sexism in criticism of Amy Klobuchar’s treatment of her aides and of Warren’s claims of Native American ancestry. But doubts about a candidate’s judgment are a legitimate reason not to like her.

And worries about Harris’s electability hinge on not just her gender but also her identity as a Black and South Asian woman. Here, too, research should reassure her supporters. A 2022 meta-analysis of 43 candidate experiments from the preceding decade could “not find any evidence for voter discrimination against racial/ethnic minority candidates.” Rather, underrepresentation of groups in elected office likely comes from “supply-side effects”—disadvantages crop up against racial and ethnic minorities before they ever run for office.

Yes, some voters may be sexist, racist, or both. But that doesn’t mean they won’t vote for Harris. You can be sexist and racist but still prefer her party and her platform to her opponent’s.

Although women make up slightly more than half of the population, the 118th Congress, convened in January 2023, was 72 percent male . That’s still a problem, but it isn’t voters’ fault. The research on women’s electability focuses on a very specific question: Do voters penalize women for their gender when they run for office? But even if they don’t, other parts of the electoral process clearly do. Women themselves don’t run for office at the rates of men. When they do run, they may face barriers behind the scenes from donors who discriminate against women—or even just plain incumbency advantages that lock in longtime elected officials, who are more likely to be male. The political scientist Jennifer Lawless has described a large pipeline issue for women—men are more likely to say they want to run for office and be encouraged to run for office, and are more likely to perceive themselves as qualified for the job.

From the July/August 2012 issue: Why women still can’t have it all

Harris has already cleared all of these hurdles, and she appears to be doing her best to inoculate herself against attacks that she is too liberal, one way that voters may penalize female candidates. Already, she is seeking to moderate her image by promising to sign border legislation and breaking with past views about fracking .

But although the Democratic nominee and her team see a path to victory, they still seem to believe that being a woman is an electoral liability. Harris’s running-mate shortlist included only white men . Two talented midwestern electoral overperformers—Klobuchar and Gretchen Whitmer—didn’t make it.

The irony is that the most consequential gender-based critiques that women candidates face aren’t coming from sexists and bigots. They’re coming from many people who desperately want to see a female candidate elected.

In other words, stop telling voters a woman can’t win. They might start to believe you.

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Yale Economic Growth Center

Looking back on the "Gender and Growth Gaps in India" research and policy dialogue

What are the trends in women’s work in India and the underlying mechanisms that drive these trends? Yale Economic Growth Center, Inclusion Economics India Centre, Inclusion Economics at Yale University, and Institute of Economic Growth brought together researchers and high-level officials from the Government of India to answer these questions and more at a joint research and policy dialogue in New Delhi on Thursday, August 8, 2024.

Harnessing the entirety of India’s human capital

By Erik Jorgensen August 15, 2024

On August 8, 2024, Yale Economic Growth Center (EGC), Inclusion Economics India Centre (IEIC), Inclusion Economics at Yale University (YIE), and Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) brought together over 160 members of the research and policy communities to discuss gender as a dominant friction in India’s labor markets, affecting the matching of talent with opportunity and the country’s development. EGC’s Gender and Growth Gaps Project comprises a crosscutting team of microeconomic and macroeconomic Yale researchers and collaborators who are interested in understanding trends in women’s work in India and the underlying mechanisms that drive these trends. This event provided a platform to share progress on this cutting edge research and hear how these findings interact with experiences of top officials from the Government of India.

Dr. Chetan Ghate (Director, IEG) and Dr. Rohini Pande (Director, Yale EGC) opened the day by discussing India’s impressive strides towards economic and financial inclusion. They described the great excitement about the potential for India to build its economy amidst the green transition and digital revolution. Alongside this enthusiasm about building an economy of the future, however, many questions remain about which policies can be leveraged to support inclusivity. Dr. Ghate commented that while economic surveys show gaps narrowed in some fields, they have widened in others. He provided specific details on a number of these gaps and noted that “investigating frictions in labor market is crucial.”

As the Government of India signals its commitment to women’s socioeconomic empowerment, increasing the gender budget by over one third, what evidence can we present to drive relevant policies to ensure these funds have the greatest impact? Rohini Pande said, “Our aim today is to discuss how we can bring microeconomic thinking and insights around gender gaps into looking at macroeconomic labor market outcomes."

From a global perspective to India-specific analysis, Pande and colleague Dr. Michael Peters (Yale) began the first session of the day by discussing how women’s economic outcomes have evolved alongside economic growth , and the implications of closing supply- and demand-side distortions in labor markets for economic development across Indian states through a proof-of-concept analysis of a Global Gender Distortions Index . While economic growth does not necessarily beget shrinking gender gaps, addressing these distortions could increase state-level productivity by up to 15 percent. 

India’s structural transformation has been atypical, and its path forward will be further shaped by modern opportunities like the green transition and digital transformation – but how can women access and lead work in these ecological and digital spaces? Shri Naresh C. Saxena (Former Secretary, Planning Commission of India) discussed how India has sought to protect its 80.9 million hectares of forest, and the different ways that men and women rely on them for their livelihoods. In order for women’s needs to be reflected in forest management, Dr. Bina Agarwal (University of Manchester and IEG) discussed the importance of reaching a critical mass within the executive committees of community forest institutions in order to ensure that women not only attend, but actively participate and influence conservation outcomes. “Why do we expect women’s presence to have an impact?” Dr. Bina Agarwal said. “Women’s dependence on forests is different from, greater than, and more every day than men’s, and this creates gender differences in conservation outcomes ranging from stakes in forest conservation, ability to conserve, knowledge of ecosystems, and valuation of these ecosystems.”

Though community management has played a massive part in the nation’s forest conservation strategy, Pande highlighted the importance of understanding incentive structures for groups and collectives when designing payments for ecosystem services, as India taps into international climate finance to support forest conservation. “Some open questions remain: What role can common forest management groups & women play in this?” she said. “When you set up these systems at a community level, how effective are they? How do you design these incentive schemes to undertake conservation and ensure that these forests remain? It’s important to tie this to international climate finance and forest management in different ways.”

India’s gig economy is large and ever-growing, and Dr. Suhani Jalota (Hoover Institute) discussed the transformative potential for women’s economic empowerment in a setting where, according to national time use data, over 70 percent of non-working women don’t leave their house at least once daily. Large and persistent digital gender gaps, however, threaten to replicate or exacerbate gaps in the analog labor market. Dr. Simone Schaner (University of Southern California and YIE) discussed how various social and economic factors intersect to inform whether or not a woman adopts digital technology and presented a framework to guide how we think about interventions that can promote meaningful access to, and use of, phones. Despite these challenges, Yale postdoctoral researcher Dr. Lisa Ho (YIE) presented research that shows how remote digital work can be not just an important income generation opportunity, but also an effective gateway to jobs outside the household. 

The dialogue then hosted a policy panel with senior Government of India officials, including Dr. V. Anantha Nageswaran (Chief Economic Adviser), Shri S Krishnan, IAS (Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology), and Dr. Saurabh Garg, IAS (Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation), moderated by EGC Deputy Director Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan . Panelists discussed India’s successes in closing the gender gap in education and promoting women’s studies in STEM fields, but even with these advances, women’s engagement in the labor force is still constrained by barriers including  childcare, occupational norms including ‘greedy work’ and non-transparent rewards, and weak public infrastructure/support systems. The policy roundtable drove home the importance of partnership between researchers and policymakers in ensuring policy is evidence-backed, and that evidence is policy-relevant. Panelists emphasized that improving outcomes is an iterative process, and where one intervention may be successful without fully closing economic gaps, we need to revisit the theory of change and try new things.

Dr. V. Anantha Nageswaran emphasized, “Bridging gender gaps in educational attainment is one aspect, but just because LFP gaps persist does not mean that education is useless. Once one particular aspect is addressed through policy, there need to be other complementary factors that need to be addressed. Changing the horizon & approach through which we look at the FLFP gap is probably equally important in addressing these gaps.” The panel also challenged researchers to support the government in developing innovative ways to capture and measure data, question which time horizons are realistic for evaluating effectiveness of policy in specific outcomes, advocate for what data would be most useful, and always share findings back where there are policy lessons. Shri S. Krishnan said, “Researchers have helped and continue to help state and national governments through designing and driving evidence-based policies and studying the efficacy of programs,” while Dr. Saurabh Garg shared, “Working with researchers is something that we do a lot, and it is always good to know what are the data gaps that serve a broader economic purpose that exist.”

Dr. Fabrizio Zilibotti (Yale University) closed the day by presenting district-level analysis of gender and labor market dynamics in India, presenting five mechanisms that could drive increased female labor participation and helping to situate many of the policy measures discussed throughout the day in broader context: (i) flexible formal work arrangements, (ii) safe public transportation in urban areas, (iii) reducing labor market discrimination, (iv) pushing for change in noms, and (v) economic growth. 

Sign up here for our Towards Gender Equality newsletter to stay in the loop about updates related to the Gender and Growth Gaps project and other ongoing research promoting women’s social and economic empowerment.

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Harris Energizes Democrats in Transformed Presidential Race

1. the presidential matchup: harris, trump, kennedy, table of contents.

• Other findings: Both Harris and Trump are viewed more favorably than a few months ago
• Voting preferences among demographic groups
• How have voters shifted their preferences since July?
• Harris’ supporters back her more strongly than Biden’s did last month
• Large gap in motivation to vote emerges between the candidates’ younger supporters
• Harris and Trump have gained ground with their own coalitions
• Share of ‘double negatives’ drops significantly with change in presidential candidates
• Views of Biden have changed little since his withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Nationally, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are essentially tied among registered voters in the current snapshot of the presidential race: 46% prefer Harris, 45% prefer Trump and 7% prefer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Following Biden’s exit from the race, Trump’s support among voters has remained largely steady (44% backed him in July against Biden, while 45% back him against Harris today). However, Harris’ support is 6 percentage points higher than Biden’s was in July . In addition to holding on to the support of those who backed Biden in July, Harris’ bump has largely come from those who had previously said they supported or leaned toward Kennedy.

Harris performs best among the same demographic groups as Biden. But this coalition of voters is now much more likely to say they strongly support her: In July, 43% of Biden’s supporters characterized their support as strong – today, 62% of Harris’ do.

Overall, many of the same voting patterns that were evident in the Biden-Trump matchup from July continue to be seen today. Harris fares better than Trump among younger voters, Black voters, Asian voters and voters with college degrees. By comparison, the former president does better among older voters, White voters and voters without a college degree.

But Harris performs better than Biden across many of these groups – making the race tighter than it was just a few weeks ago.

• In July, women’s presidential preferences were split: 40% backed Biden, 40% preferred Trump and 17% favored Kennedy. With Harris at the top of the ticket, 49% of women voters now support her, while 42% favor Trump and 7% back Kennedy.
• Among men, Trump draws a similar level of support as he did in the race against Biden (49% today, compared with 48% in July). But the share of men who now say they support Harris has grown (to 44% today, up from 38% last month). As a result, Trump’s 10-point lead among men has narrowed to a 5-point lead today.

Race and ethnicity

Harris has gained substantial ground over Biden’s position in July among Black, Hispanic and Asian voters. Most of this movement is attributable to declining shares of support for Kennedy. Trump performs similarly among these groups as he did in July.

• 77% of Black voters support or lean toward Harris. This compares with 64% of Black voters who said they backed Biden a few weeks ago. Trump’s support is unchanged (13% then vs. 13% today). And while 21% of Black voters supported Kennedy in July, this has dropped to 7% in the latest survey.
• Hispanic voters now favor Harris over Trump by a 17-point margin (52% to 35%). In July, Biden and Trump were tied among Hispanic voters with 36% each.
• By about two-to-one, Asian voters support Harris (62%) over Trump (28%). Trump’s support among this group is essentially unchanged since July, but the share of Asian voters backing Harris is 15 points higher than the share who backed Biden in July.
• On balance, White voters continue to back Trump (52% Trump, 41% Harris), though that margin is somewhat narrower than it was in the July matchup against Biden (50% Trump, 36% Biden).

While the age patterns present in the Harris-Trump matchup remain broadly the same as those in the Biden-Trump matchup in July, Harris performs better across age groups than Biden did last month. That improvement is somewhat more pronounced among voters under 50 than among older voters.

• Today, 57% of voters under 30 say they support Harris, while 29% support Trump and 12% prefer Kennedy. In July, 48% of these voters said they backed Biden. Trump’s support among this group is essentially unchanged. And 12% now back Kennedy, down from 22% in July.
• Voters ages 30 to 49 are now about evenly split (45% Harris, 43% Trump). This is a shift from a narrow Trump lead among this group in July.
• Voters ages 50 and older continue to tilt toward Trump (50% Trump vs. 44% Harris).

With Harris now at the top of the Democratic ticket, the race has become tighter.

Much of this is the result of shifting preferences among registered voters who, in July, said they favored Kennedy over Trump or Biden.

Among the same group of voters surveyed in July and early August, 97% of those who backed Biden a few weeks ago say they support or lean toward Harris today. Similarly, Trump holds on to 95% of those who supported him a few weeks ago.

But there has been far more movement among voters who previously expressed support for Kennedy. While Kennedy holds on to 39% of those who backed him in July, the majority of these supporters now prefer one of the two major party candidates: By about two-to-one, those voters are more likely to have moved to Harris (39%) than Trump (20%). This pattern is evident across most voting subgroups.

In July, Trump’s voters were far more likely than Biden’s voters to characterize their support for their candidate as “strong” (63% vs. 43%). But that gap is no longer present in the Harris-Trump matchup.

Today, 62% of Harris voters say they strongly support her, while about a third (32%) say they moderately support her. Trump’s voters are just about as likely to say they strongly back him today as they were in July (64% today, 63% then).

Kennedy’s voters make up a smaller share of voters today than a month ago – and just 18% of his voters say they strongly support him, similar to the 15% who said the same in July.

Across demographic groups, strong support for Harris is higher than it was for Biden

Among women voters who supported Biden in July, 45% said they did so strongly. That has grown to 65% today among women voters who support Harris.

Increased intensity of support is similar among men voters who back the Democratic candidate: In July, 42% of men voters who supported Biden said they did so strongly. This has since grown to 59% of Harris’ voters who are men.

Across racial and ethnic groups, Harris’ supporters are more likely than Biden’s were to say they back their candidates strongly.

Among White voters, 43% who supported Biden in July did so strongly. Today, Harris’ strong support among White voters sits at 64%.

A near identical share of Harris’ Black supporters (65%) characterize their support for her as strong today. This is up from the 52% of Biden’s Black supporters who strongly backed him in July. Among Harris’ Hispanic supporters, 56% support her strongly, while 45% of Asian Harris voters feel the same. Strong support for Harris among these voters is also higher than it was for Biden in July.

Across all age groups, Harris’ strength of support is higher than Biden’s was. But the shift from Biden is less pronounced among older Democratic supporters than among younger groups.

Still, older Harris voters are more likely than younger Harris voters to describe their support as strong. For instance, 51% of Harris’ voters under 50 say they strongly support her, while 71% of Harris supporters ages 50 and older characterize their support as strong.

Today, about seven-in-ten of both Trump supporters (72%) and Harris supporters (70%) say they are extremely motivated to vote.

Motivation to vote is higher in both the Democratic and Republican coalitions than it was in July .

These shifts have occurred across groups but are more pronounced among younger voters.

Today, half of voters under 30 say they are extremely motivated to vote, up 16 points since July. Motivation is up 11 points among voters ages 30 to 49 and 50 to 64, and up 6 points among those ages 65 and older.

Among the youngest voters, the increased motivation to vote is nearly all driven by shifts among Democratic supporters.

• In July, 38% of 18- to 29-year-old Trump voters said they were extremely motivated to vote. Today, a similar share of his voters (42%) report that level of motivation.
• But 18- to 29-year-old Harris supporters are far more likely to say they are extremely motivated to vote than Biden’s supporters in this age group were about a month ago. Today, 61% of Harris’ voters under 30 say this. In July, 42% of voters under 30 who supported Biden said they were extremely motivated to vote.

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