IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/deveco/v174y2025ics0304387824001615.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic shocks, gender, and populism: Evidence from Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Barros, Laura
  • Santos Silva, Manuel

Abstract

This paper investigates whether differential exposure to a labor market shock by gender contributed to the rise of far-right populism in Brazil. Using a shift-share approach, we find that gender heterogeneity in shock exposure predicts electoral outcomes. Male-specific labor demand shocks increase support for Jair Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential election, but female-specific shocks have the reverse effect. These opposing effects are accompanied by an unprecedented gender gap in political preferences, with men becoming relatively more conservative. Our preferred interpretation is that Bolsonaro’s conservative rhetoric – shared by several other right-wing populists – generates appeal among men who experience a relative loss in economic status.

Suggested Citation

  • Barros, Laura & Santos Silva, Manuel, 2025. "Economic shocks, gender, and populism: Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:174:y:2025:i:c:s0304387824001615
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304387824001615
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2024.103412?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic shocks; Elections; Populism; Gender;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • R23 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:deveco:v:174:y:2025:i:c:s0304387824001615. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/devec .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.