The book and movie comparisons throw me off. It looks like the majority of dog owners in this research are women, while the majority of cat owners are men. I'd have expected those to be reversed.
My gut reaction to the book and movie comparisons is that people who share cat photos tend to be liberal and people who share dog photos tend to be conservative (for the US definition of liberal and conservative). Maybe I'm off base.
Also, note that the comparison is about people who share cat or dog photos and their Facebook friends -- not about cat or dog people and their actual friends. I'm a dog person and many of my friends are cat people, but I wouldn't be interested in seeing their cat photos on Facebook. Nor would I be posting dog photos anywhere...
It's also difficult to have a real dog if you're living in a city. Dogs need space, exercise, and attention, which are in short supply the more urban you go. Additionally, it can be almost impossible to find apartments that will allow dogs over purse-size.
Cats don't particularly need exercise, are small, tend to be able to entertain themselves, and for whatever reason, are easier to get permission to have in apartments[1]. So if you're a city person, it's magnitudes easier to be a cat person, if you're going to have pets at all. City people are more liberal than country people, on average.
[1] I cannot stand litterboxes, hairballs, or cat urine, so this baffles me...
Suburbs count as city, though, not rural. And to me, that's a dog's niche: the detached-home-plus-yard. Dogs don't fit in apartments, but they don't really "earn their keep" on farms, either (on ranches or pastures, sure, but not farms.) Meanwhile, it's traditional to have a barn-cat to keep away vermin, even if you've also got traps.
The TV tendencies are even more confusing, where "dog people" watch both super-masculine (entourage, duck dynasty) and feminine (The Voice) shows (and cat people are apparently the stereotypical geek).
Simple really, just not a masculine/feminine thing. Dog people shows are terrible while cat people shows are interesting. (ok except maybe entourage, guilty pleasure)
Hypothesis: this whole article ignores the selection effect of getting from "people with pets" to "people who talk about their pets on Facebook." Maybe dog-owning men, and cat-owning women, just don't think their pets need a social-media presence?
The majority partners of women are men, and the majority of partners of men are women. I think for one-to-one companionship people look for compatibility rather than similarity.
Where I live, it's definitely not true... or men at least don't admit to preferring cats.
If you did an a survey of men in Dearborn, Michigan you would probably find the opposite, with significantly more men preferring cats (due to religious or cultural reasons)
Unless I missed it, they failed to say which genders and ages and so on are more likely to own cats vs dogs. They only covered single people in those breakdowns.
Also, note that the comparison is about people who share cat or dog photos and their Facebook friends -- not about cat or dog people and their actual friends. I'm a dog person and many of my friends are cat people, but I wouldn't be interested in seeing their cat photos on Facebook. Nor would I be posting dog photos anywhere...