Gender and participation in Africa’s electoral regimes: an analysis of variation in the gender gap

Abstract

Across Africa, it has been found that women participate in politics less than men, undermining prospects for gender equality and shared development. Despite theoretical and practical reasons for concern over the “gender gap”, we lack insight into its variation across countries, particularly in Africa, where studies accept women’s lower rate of participation as a uniform background condition. I address this lacuna using four rounds of Afrobarometer data from 31 countries to identify predictors of country-level variation in the gender gap. Drawing from literature on gender gaps elsewhere, I identify institutional and structural variables thought to influence women’s political engagement relative to men’s and evaluate these hypotheses quantitatively at the cross-national level, finding that country-level gaps vary predictably based on the percentage of female legislative representatives, the duration of democracy, and French colonial history. Finally, I use the least-likely case of Senegal to explore how the process to increase women’s legislative representation coincided with a dramatic increase in women’s participation.

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