Co-habiting Couples, Economic Standing and Support of Right-wing Populism in the Netherlands: a Diagonal Reference Models Approach

Over the past three decades, right-wing populism has steadily risen to prominence across the world. Yet a crucial socio-economic context for its development - the household and its underlying gender dynamics - remains under-explored in research on right-wing populism. This study investigates how the income, level of education, and class within cohabiting couples in the Netherlands, shape their support for right-wing populism through three diverse predictors, ranging from behavioural to attitudinal: voting for right-wing populist [RWP] parties, aim to vote for RWP parties, and sympathy towards RWP parties. Four models are tested to explain these relationships: male dominance, sharing, individual, and economic dominance models. Based on previous studies focusing on non-RWP parties, I expected the individual model for men and the sharing model for women to provide the best fit. Using data from the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences, this paper utilises diagonal reference models [DRM], for men and women separately, to trace the relative influence of the respondent and their partner on their RWP support. As far as I know, DRM has never been used to predict support for RWP parties. As expected, gender differences are evident. However, the data show, contrary to expectation, that the sharing model provides the best fit for men, while the individual model provides the best fit for women when it comes to income and education. Regarding class, as expected, the sharing model provides the best fit for women. The implications of these findings are discussed in light of the diverse characteristics of the economic standing predictors and the different facets of RWP support tested. As women increasingly join the workforce and occupy diverse roles, the ways in which men and women perceive their economic circumstances - particularly within households - diverge significantly. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for household context and gender dynamics in understanding the rise of right-wing populism in developed democracies such as the Netherlands.