IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v9y2019i4p78-d287446.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is There a Gender Gap in the Sense of Duty to Vote?

Author

Listed:
  • Carol Galais

    (Departament de Ciència Política i Dret Públic, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain)

  • André Blais

    (Département de Science Politique, Université de Montréal, Pavillon Lionel-Groulx local C4040, Montreal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada)

Abstract

The topic of gender differences in the propensity to vote has been a central theme in political behavior studies for more than seventy years. When trying to explain why the turnout gender gap has shrunk over the last few decades, some scholars have claimed that this might be due to the fact that women are more dutiful than men; however, no study to date has systematically addressed gender differences regarding the sense of civic duty to vote. The present research focused on such differences and empirically tested the role of political interest and moral predispositions on this gender gap. We explored duty levels in nine different Western countries and, most of the time, we found small but significant gender differences in favor of men. Our estimations suggest that this relationship can be explained mainly by the simple fact that women are less interested in politics than men.

Suggested Citation

  • Carol Galais & André Blais, 2019. "Is There a Gender Gap in the Sense of Duty to Vote?," Societies, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-15, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:9:y:2019:i:4:p:78-:d:287446
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/4/78/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/9/4/78/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Derek Dalton & Marc Ortegren, 2011. "Gender Differences in Ethics Research: The Importance of Controlling for the Social Desirability Response Bias," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 103(1), pages 73-93, September.
    2. Robert Klemmensen & Peter K Hatemi & Sara Binzer Hobolt & Inge Petersen & Axel Skytthe & Asbjørn S Nørgaard, 2012. "The genetics of political participation, civic duty, and political efficacy across cultures: Denmark and the United States," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(3), pages 409-427, July.
    3. Peter Thisted Dinesen & Asbjørn Sonne Nørgaard & Robert Klemmensen, 2014. "The Civic Personality: Personality and Democratic Citizenship," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 62, pages 134-152, April.
    4. Desposato, Scott & Norrander, Barbara, 2009. "The Gender Gap in Latin America: Contextual and Individual Influences on Gender and Political Participation," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(1), pages 141-162, January.
    5. Russell J. Dalton, 2008. "Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(1), pages 76-98, March.
    6. Patrick Emmenegger & Philip Manow, 2014. "Religion and the Gender Vote Gap," Politics & Society, , vol. 42(2), pages 166-193, June.
    7. Gerber, Alan S. & Gruber, Jonathan & Hungerman, Daniel M., 2016. "Does Church Attendance Cause People to Vote? Using Blue Laws’ Repeal to Estimate the Effect of Religiosity on Voter Turnout," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(3), pages 481-500, July.
    8. Russell J. Dalton, 2008. "Citizenship Norms and the Expansion of Political Participation," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56, pages 76-98, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rosa Roig & Cristina Aybar & Jose M. Pavía, 2020. "Gender Inequalities and Social Sustainability. Can Modernization Diminish the Gender Gap in Political Knowledge?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-17, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hilde Coffe & Catherine Bolzendahl, 2011. "Gender Gaps in Political Participation Across Sub-Saharan African Nations," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 102(2), pages 245-264, June.
    2. Jennifer Oser & Marc Hooghe & Zsuzsa Bakk & Roberto Mari, 2023. "Changing citizenship norms among adolescents, 1999-2009-2016: A two-step latent class approach with measurement equivalence testing," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 4915-4933, October.
    3. Jennifer Oser, 2017. "Assessing How Participators Combine Acts in Their “Political Tool Kits”: A Person-Centered Measurement Approach for Analyzing Citizen Participation," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 133(1), pages 235-258, August.
    4. Tore Ellingsen & Benedikt Herrmann & Martin A. Nowak & David G. Rand & Corina E. Tarnita, 2012. "Civic Capital in Two Cultures: The Nature of Cooperation in Romania and USA," CESifo Working Paper Series 4042, CESifo.
    5. Jae Young Lim & Kuk-Kyoung Moon, 2020. "Examining the Moderation Effect of Political Trust on the Linkage between Civic Morality and Support for Environmental Taxation," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-15, June.
    6. Piatak Jaclyn, 2023. "Do Sociocultural Factors Drive Civic Engagement? An Examination of Political Interest and Religious Attendance," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 185-204, April.
    7. Sofie Marien & Marc Hooghe & Ellen Quintelier, 2010. "Inequalities in Non‐institutionalised Forms of Political Participation: A Multi‐level Analysis of 25 countries," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(1), pages 187-213, February.
    8. Li, Xuan, 2020. "The critical assessment of the youth policy and youth civic engagement in Denmark and three Danish municipalities," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    9. Jesús Granados-Sánchez, 2023. "Sustainable Global Citizenship: A Critical Realist Approach," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-22, March.
    10. Piotr Koc, 2021. "Measuring Non-electoral Political Participation: Bi-factor Model as a Tool to Extract Dimensions," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 271-287, July.
    11. Miki Fukuda & Eric Zusman, 2024. "Meaningful Youth Engagement in Sustainability Processes in Japan and Finland: A Comparative Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-20, July.
    12. Roberto Foa & Anna Nemirovskaya, 2014. "State Formation And Frontier Society: An Empirical Examination," HSE Working papers WP BRP 13/PS/2014, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    13. Cato Waeterloos & Peter Conradie & Michel Walrave & Koen Ponnet, 2021. "Digital Issue Movements: Political Repertoires and Drivers of Participation among Belgian Youth in the Context of ‘School Strike for Climate’," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-19, September.
    14. Susan L. Prescott & Alan C. Logan & Glenn Albrecht & Dianne E. Campbell & Julian Crane & Ashlee Cunsolo & John W. Holloway & Anita L. Kozyrskyj & Christopher A. Lowry & John Penders & Nicole Redvers &, 2018. "The Canmore Declaration: Statement of Principles for Planetary Health," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-18, July.
    15. Gail Pacheco & Barrett Owen, 2015. "Moving through the political participation hierarchy: a focus on personal values," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 222-238, January.
    16. Sara Wallace Goodman, 2022. "“Good Citizens†in Democratic Hard Times," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 699(1), pages 68-78, January.
    17. Hei Gao & Zike Xu & Yu Chen & Yutian Lu & Jian Lin, 2022. "Walking Environment and Obesity: A Gender-Specific Association Study in Shanghai," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(4), pages 1-16, February.
    18. Ana Pontes & Matt Henn & Mark D. Griffiths, 2018. "Towards a Conceptualization of Young People’s Political Engagement: A Qualitative Focus Group Study," Societies, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-17, March.
    19. Kosta Bovan & Matej Mikašinović-Komšo, 2024. "Beyond the board: a thematic analysis of political actions from 4chan’s /pol/ board," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    20. David Johann & Markus Steinbrecher & Kathrin Thomas, 2020. "Channels of participation: Political participant types and personality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-13, October.

    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:gam:jsoctx:v:9:y:2019:i:4:p:78-:d:287446. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.