Make America caring again.

This is what women voters want amid the new coronavirus pandemic, according to a new analysis by the Center for American Women and Politics.

The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the health and safety of Americans, and has placed a spotlight on the lack of access to health insurance among many, increasing unemployment rates, and the growing demands on food banks.

Greater support exists among women for social welfare programs including support for the government’s role in providing health and economic security, according to the analysis. Women also believe that promoting the well-being of all will likely continue to distinguish support by gender among this year’s presidential contenders.

Taking into account American National Election Studies data from 1980 to 2016, CAWP concluded that the most important issue to women and the leading factor contributing to the gender gap in vote choice is social welfare programs. In fact, social welfare attitudes explain nearly 61% of the gender gap.

This compares with other issues such as defense spending attitudes, which mediate 22.36% of the gap; support for regulations to protect the environment, which mediates 20.93% of the gap; and support for laws that protect gay men and lesbians from discrimination, which mediates 25.47% of the gap.

The CAWP analysis also found that policy positions on social welfare issues are the leading factor explaining the gender gap in party identification. More specifically, women are consistently more likely than men to support a greater role of government in ensuring health care access and providing financial and food assistance, as well as to place value on social equality and the well-being of all in society.

Research conducted by CAWP also found there are likely considerable gender differences in support for policies that provide relief to Americans struggling financially during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Simply put, women are more likely to want the government to provide a social safety net for those in need.

Finally, CAWP also looked at the diversity of opinion among women. For example, on a scale ranging from 1 to 7 of support for social welfare programs, with a higher score indicating greater support, white women have a mean score of 2.96 compared with Black women’s mean of 3.54.

Slightly smaller differences emerge among women by education and income. Women with a college degree have a mean score of 2.94 compared with 3.12 among women without a college degree, and women with lower incomes have a mean score of 3.25 compared with a mean score of 2.99 among women with higher incomes.

Read the full analysis here.