Looking Inside the Ballot Box: Gender Gaps in Argentine Presidential Elections

Since women were given the right to vote in the first half of the 20th century, several studies verify the existence of noticeable differences in women and men voting conduct. Theories explaining such behavior rely mainly on stereotypes, differences in values as well as disparities in self perceptions of men and women This paper, using a unique and unusual gender-segregated voting booths that was in use in Argentina until 2007, suggests that labor market incentives play a key role explaining the electoral gender gap. Our estimations, that come out from a panel data of five presidential elections at district level, show that the voting gender gap reduces as women acquire the head of household status. That is, as women face analogous incentives to men, their evaluation of the incumbent performance and their policies tend to be similar to males leading to a reduction in the gender gap.