During the Reagan Revolution, a significant gender gap emerged, accompanied by an urban–rural schism in party preference by gender, one manifestation of the nation’s widening urban–rural divide. Using the General Social Survey (GSS) data from 1972 to 2018, we explore this urban–rural schism in party preference by running several ordinary least squares models and specifications. Controlling for individuals’ traits, we find that differences in the preference for governmental action to address social problems lie at the heart of this gender gap and are further explained by location. Urban women are far more likely than urban men to call for the government to solve problems of income inequality; rural women, like rural men, are much more likely to emphasize individual responsibility and self-sufficiency.

Metropolitan areas tend to be materialistic/consumerist, and materialism/consumerism is usually considered immoral. Some literature argues that in cities, in general, there is more vice and immorality. In this study, we empirically explore the relationship between urbanness and materialism/immorality using 1972–2018 US General Social Survey. We find much support for a hypothesis that urbanness is associated with higher materialism and immorality. Seven out of eight measures show some evidence of more materialism/immorality in large cities, and four measures remain significant even in the most oversaturated models. However, we caution, as it is one of the first quantitative studies in the area, that the evidence is provisional. While there is a lot of theory, more empirical quantitative research is needed. The study is associative, not causal, and results may not generalize outside of the US.