The Cultural Sources of the Gender Gap in Voter Turnout

Recent publications argue that the traditional gender gap in voting has decreased or reversed in many democracies. However, this decrease in the gender gap may apply only to some types of elections. Building on the existing literature, we hypothesise that although women participate at the same or higher rates as men in national elections, they participate less in supranational elections. We investigate this possibility empirically by analyzing the evolution of gender gap in voter turnout in elections to the European parliament (EP). We make three important contributions. First, we show the presence and stability of the traditional gender gap in EP elections. Second, we find that gender differences in political interest are the main source of this gender gap. Third, these gender differences in political interest are, in turn, context-dependent. They are strongly associated with cultural gender differences, which we capture through differences in boys’ and girls’ maths scores

Has the gender gap in voter turnout really disappeared?

According to conventional wisdom, the traditional gender gap in voting has disappeared or even reversed in most established democracies. Drawing on the existing literature on sex differences in political engagement and on pioneering voter turnout theories, this article questions the conventional assumption and hypothesises that women still participate at lower rates in less important elections. It systematically tests this hypothesis by exploring the impact of sex on voter turnout in different electoral arenas. The empirical analyses of two cross-national datasets (Making Electoral Democracy Work and the European Election Study) demonstrate that although there is generally no gender gap in first-order elections, women tend to vote less than men in second-order contests. This reflects women’s weaker interest in politics and their lower levels of knowledge about politics in second-order electoral arenas

Increasingly unequal turnout in Eastern European new democracies: Communist and transitional legacies versus new institutions

The thesis examines whether income inequality in post-Communist Eastern Europe depresses political engagement or increases the potential for conflict and instability. The thesis finds that while overall income inequality is correlated with lower political engagement and political engagement is stratified by income, income inequality does not appear to depress political engagement among the poor in post-Communist Eastern Europe. I use multilevel modeling to examine mass survey data from the survey done by Professors Whitefield and Evans as part of an ESCR-funded project as well the World Values Surveys