Gender empathy gap

Empathy in different genders

Empathy perception

Studies have consistently found that women report higher levels of empathy than men. According to some studies, females may recognize facial expressions and emotions more accurately and quickly than males, particularly in interpreting neutral body language. Additionally, females tend to recognize male expressions of anger more accurately, while males may better recognize female expressions of happiness.

Gender differences in empathy have also been observed in other species, including gorillas, rats, and corvids, with females generally showing higher levels of empathetic behavior than males.

A systematic review examining gender differences in empathy among medical students found that female students consistently exhibited higher empathy levels than their male counterparts. This review included 30 studies with diverse sample sizes and geographic representation, increasing the robustness of its findings. Researchers have hypothesized that females' empathetic performance may be influenced by motivation—suggesting that when women perceive a situation as requiring empathy, they tend to perform better, but may otherwise show no significant difference from men.

Females also tend to score higher on "theory of mind" assessments. A large-scale study of over 300,000 participants across 57 countries found that women outperformed men on the widely used "Reading the Mind in the Eyes" test, which measures cognitive empathy.

From birth, male and female infants respond differently to emotional stimuli. Female neonates are more likely to cry when hearing other infants cry, and they make more eye contact than male infants. Some researchers believe that these early differences in responsiveness and eye contact may contribute to the development of stronger empathic skills in females over time.

Many studies show that females have an on-average advantage in empathic accuracy skills.

Empathy reception

Positive bias toward women

The women-are-wonderful effect is a well-documented psychological phenomenon describing the tendency of both men and women to view women more positively than men, particularly in terms of warmth, empathy, and morality. First introduced by social psychologists Alice Eagly and Antonio Mladinic in the early 1990s, the effect has been replicated across cultures and is considered a foundational mechanism contributing to the gender empathy gap.

Implications for empathy

This favorable bias increases the likelihood of empathizing with women more readily than with men. When women are perceived as more vulnerable or morally deserving, their suffering may be interpreted as more serious or urgent. This can result in:

• Greater emotional support and concern for female victims
• Increased moral outrage when women are harmed
• Higher willingness to help or defend women in ambiguous situations
• Greater support for government policies targeting women falling behind compared to policies targeting men falling behind.

A 2019 study published in Psychology of Men & Masculinity found that both male and female participants were significantly more likely to feel compassion for a physically injured female subject than for a male subject in the same scenario.

A 2025 study on 35,000 Americans found that both men and women consider males falling behind to be less deserving of support than females falling behind because they are more likely to believe that males fall behind due to lack of effort.