The Gender Gap in African Political Participation: Individual and contextual determinants

Ann-Sofie Isaksson, Andreas Kotsadam and Måns Nerman ()
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Måns Nerman: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University, Postal: Box 640, SE 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

No 530, Working Papers in Economics from University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors underlying the gender gap in African electoral and inter-electoral political participation. Drawing on new data covering over 27,000 respondents from 246 regions in 20 emerging African democracies, the empirical findings suggest that while there is a gender gap in both voting and inter-electoral participation, the latter is larger. Whereas several of the investigated individual and contextual characteristics are found to be important determinants of participation, they explain only a very modest share of the observed gender gaps. We do find, however, that gender gaps in education are negatively correlated with female inter-electoral participation and that gender gaps in employment are negatively related to female voting. Interestingly, and contrary to suggestions in previous research, there is no evidence that religiosity at the individual or community level increases the gender differences in political activity.

Keywords: political participation; gender gap; Africa; afrobarometer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 D72 J16 O12 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33 pages
Date: 2012-03-09
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