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Insights from the Field

Women Don't Turn Out As Often as Men For European Parliament Elections?


European Parliament
Gender Gap Voter Turnout
Cultural Factors Political Science
Voting and Elections
BJPS
1 Stata files
5 datasets
Dataverse
The Cultural Sources of the Gender Gap in Voter Turnout was authored by Ruth Dassonneville and Filip Kostelka. It was published by Cambridge in BJPS in 2021.

The traditional gender gap in voter turnout persists in supranational elections like those for the European Parliament (EP), despite women's higher participation rates or parity in national polls.

Key Findings:

* The study empirically confirms a consistent gender gap favoring men at the EP level, contrary to trends observed elsewhere.

* Women vote less frequently than men specifically during EU elections. This finding directly challenges the notion of its complete disappearance.

Why It Matters:

* These results highlight that while women might be equally engaged or even more active in national voting contexts, their participation significantly lags when it comes to electing supranational representatives like Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

The study then delves into possible reasons:

Source Analysis:

* Political Interest Differences: Research consistently shows systematic gender disparities in political interest and engagement.

* Context Dependence: This article argues that these differences are not uniform across all elections but become particularly pronounced when the stakes involve perceived EU-level politics, potentially tied to different cultural interpretations of its relevance. The authors posit a link between this gap and underlying cultural factors reflected in gendered attitudes towards subjects like mathematics.

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