Religion and the Gender Vote Gap : Women's Changed Political Preferences from the 1970s to 2010
Journal
ZeS working paper 1/2012
ISSN
0032-3292
ISSN-Digital
1552-7514
Type
working paper
Date Issued
2014-06
Author(s)
Abstract
For many years women tended to vote more conservative than men, but since the 1980s this gap has shifted direction: women in many countries are more likely than men to support left parties. The literature largely agrees on a set of political-economic factors explaining the change in women's political orientation. In this article we demonstrate that these conventional factors fall short in explaining the gender vote gap. We highlight the importance of a religious cleavage in the party system across Western European countries, restricting the free flow of religious voters between left and right parties. Given that surveys show us a constantly higher degree of religiosity among women and a persistent impact of religion on vote choice, religion explains a substantial part of the temporal as well as cross-country variation in the transition from the more conservative to the more progressive voting behavior of women.
Language
English
Keywords
gender vote gap
religion
party system
cleavages
swing voters
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
SEPS - Global Democratic Governance
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Sage Periodicals Press
Publisher place
Thousand Oaks, Calif.
Volume
42
Number
2
Start page
166
End page
193
Pages
28
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
229676