Why Are Women Less Democratic Than Men? Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries

Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa and Maty Konte ()

World Development, 2014, vol. 59, issue C, 104-119

Abstract: A substantial literature has examined the determinants of support for democracy and although existing work has found a gender gap in democratic attitudes, there have been no attempts to explain it. In this paper we try to understand why females are less supportive of democracy than males in a number of countries. Using data for 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, we test whether the gap is due to individual differences previously ignored or to country-wide characteristics. We find that controlling for individual characteristics does not offset the gender gap, but our results indicate that the gap is eroded by high levels of human development and political rights.

Keywords: support for democracy; gender gap; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X14000060
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Why are Women less Democratic than Men? Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries (2014)
Working Paper: Why are women less democratic than men? Evidence from Sub-Saharan African countries (2014)
Working Paper: Why Are Women Less Democratic Than Men? Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries (2013)
Working Paper: Why are Women less Democratic than Men? Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries (2013)
Working Paper: Why Are Women Less Democratic Than Men? Evidence from Sub-Saharan African Countries (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:59:y:2014:i:c:p:104-119

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.01.005

Access Statistics for this article

World Development is currently edited by O. T. Coomes

More articles in World Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().