Addressing the Gender Gap: The Effect of Compulsory Voting on Women’s Electoral Engagement

Abstract

In light of gender disparities in political involvement, extant research has examined mechanisms for incorporating ordinary women into politics. We complement this literature by exploring the effect of an overlooked institution theorized to promote political equality by maximizing voter turnout: compulsory voting. We theorize that in enforced compulsory voting systems, women are more likely to receive and seek information about electoral choices than their counterparts in voluntary voting systems. Consequently, compulsory voting helps narrow the gender gap beyond voting by creating opportunities and motivations for women to engage with the electoral process and its main actors. Our multilevel analysis based on cross-national survey data lends strong support to our hypotheses. Countries with enforced mandatory voting laws display a much smaller gender gap not only in voting, but also in several other forms of electoral engagement, including political party information, campaign attentiveness, party attachment, and campaign participation.

Keywords

political behavior public opinion gender gap compulsory voting

Improving gender equality in political engagement is essential for the promotion of representative democracy around the world. Ordinary women in several countries still vote at a lower rate than men, and in most countries women are less engaged in other areas of politics (Kittilson & Schwindt-Bayer, 2012; Paxton & Hughes, 2014). For instance, women typically have more limited access to political information (Barabas, Jerit, Pollock, & Rainey, 2014; Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1992, 1996) and engage with electoral campaigns at lower rates (Ordecin & Jones-White, 2011). A widely cited approach to encourage ordinary women’s political engagement is the adoption of institutions that promote the representation of women in government and more proportional electoral outcomes, such as legislative gender quotas and proportional representation (PR) systems (Baldez, 2004; Kittilson & Schwindt-Bayer, 2010, 2012; Krook, 2014). Yet, empirical studies exploring the effects of these institutions on the gender gap have yielded mixed results. In this article, we examine the impact of an institution that remains largely understudied in this literature: compulsory voting (CV).

Building on recent studies demonstrating that CV has a positive effect on various forms of political behavior (e.g., Shineman, 2012; Singh & Thornton, 2013)—particularly among disadvantaged populations (e.g., Fowler, 2013; Gallego, 2015)—we argue that CV laws enforced via costly sanctions (herein enforced CV) can reduce the gender gap in and beyond voting. Despite the fact that women typically face higher barriers to acquire political information, we theorize that women in countries where voting is obligatory will be more likely to receive and seek information about their voting choices during electoral campaigns than their female counterparts in voluntary voting (VV) systems. Thus, CV incentivizes women to engage with the electoral process, resulting in a narrower gender gap in various forms of electoral engagement. Two main mechanisms are at the core of these expectations.

First, when all citizens are required by law to cast a ballot, discussion of politics becomes vibrant and political information more readily available during electoral campaigns (Birch, 2009; Shineman, 2012). Consequently, individuals who typically have a harder time acquiring political information, such as women, have more opportunities to receive or be exposed to information about contending political parties. Second, women should be more inclined to seek information about political parties during electoral campaigns in countries with enforced CV laws. Due to their more limited resources, women in these countries are more likely than men to perceive the cost of voting in election after election as an expensive non-recoverable cost (i.e., a sunk cost).¹ Women should then be particularly motivated to actively seek information on political parties to avoid wasting their vote.

In short, as CV laws create opportunities and motivations for women to acquire political information, we should observe higher rates of female engagement with the electoral process and its main actors, particularly political parties. In this article, we search for evidence supporting these expectations by taking into account multiple indicators of electoral engagement. Our empirical analyses rely on post-election survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) gathered between 1996 and 2011 in a large number of countries across all regions of the world. The results of our multilevel analysis are consistent with our theoretical expectations. Compared with VV systems, countries that promote voter turnout through enforced CV laws have smaller gender gaps not only in voting, but also in political party information, electoral campaign attentiveness, political party attachment, and participation in electoral campaigns. Notably, these results are robust even after we account for the effect of women’s numeric representation in the legislature and the proportionality of the electoral system.

Origins of the Gender Gap and the Impact of Political Institutions

A prominent explanation for the existence of a gender gap in political engagement points to women’s more limited access to resources (Brady, Verba, & Schlozman, 1995; Schlozman, Burns, & Verba, 1994; Verba, Burns, & Schlozman, 1997). As one author puts it, “Confining and isolating roles [such as wife, mother, or homemaker] do not permit access to political resources such as time, money, contacts, organizational life, [and] channels of communication” (Jennings, 1983, p. 364). Even though women across the world now have greater access to education and the labor market, they are still paid lower salaries than men for the same jobs, and continue to be largely responsible for care and housework (Ferguson, 2013). On a given day, women around the globe spend from 2 to 10 hr more than men caring for others in the household, and from 1 to 3 hr more on housework (The World Bank, 2012, p. 17).

Having fewer resources not only means that women might find it more difficult to go to the polls or attend political events, but also that they face higher barriers to acquiring political information more generally. Women are less likely to be part of social groups where politics is discussed (Norris & Inglehart, 2006), making the acquisition of political information more costly for them (Gidengil et al., 2006; McPherson & Smith-Lovin, 1986; Popielarz, 1999). By contrast, men devote more time to after-work activities outside the home, and thus can more easily acquire political information through membership in social groups concerned with public affairs, such as labor unions and business organizations. In short, fewer resources result in higher costs of political participation for women and also make access to political information more difficult. The end result is typically a gender gap in various forms of political engagement.

Previous studies, however, have documented that the size of the gender gap varies across countries (Beauregard, 2014; Kittilson & Schwindt-Bayer, 2010, 2012; Nir & McClurg, 2015), and that in some countries men and women engage in certain forms of political involvement at the same rate—especially when it comes to voting. These cross-national differences suggest that contextual factors are important determinants of the gender gap. An important line of research points to the relevance of institutional design to explain national patterns of women’s political behavior. Scholars argue that inclusive institutions that promote political representation encourage female political engagement (Kittilson & Schwindt-Bayer, 2012), and thus help narrow the gender gap. Two political institutions are highlighted in this literature: gender quotas and PR.

Scholars theorize that a higher level of women’s numeric representation in the legislature—typically the result of effective gender quotas (Jones, 2009; Schwindt-Bayer, 2009; Tripp & Kang, 2008)—can spur political engagement among ordinary women by making them more likely to believe that their policy interests will be advanced, and that politics is not only a man’s game (Burns, Schlozman, & Verba, 2001; Karp & Banducci, 2008; Verba et al., 1997). Similarly, relative to plurality systems, PR systems that result in the representation of a larger number of political parties have been theorized to promote higher participation rates among ordinary women by making them perceive political systems as overall more inclusive (Kittilson & Schwindt-Bayer, 2010, 2012). Under PR, political parties are also expected to compete for the vote of traditionally disengaged citizens, including women, and consequently mobilize them to vote (Kittilson & Schwindt-Bayer, 2012).

The existing empirical evidence on the impact of such inclusive institutions on the gender gap, however, remains inconclusive. While some studies show that a higher percentage of women in the legislature results in a narrower gender gap in political engagement (Barnes & Burchard, 2013; Burnet, 2011; Desposato & Norrander, 2009), other research finds little support for this relationship (Karp & Banducci, 2008; Kittilson & Schwindt-Bayer, 2012; Lawless, 2004). Studies examining the impact of quota adoption per se on women’s political behavior report a null effect (Barnes & Burchard, 2013; Zetterberg, 2009). By contrast, a recent study finds that the adoption of quotas can in fact reduce women’s political engagement (Clayton, 2015). With respect to PR systems, Kittilson and Schwindt-Bayer (2010, 2012) find that more proportional outcomes result in a smaller gender gap in various forms of political engagement. Yet, more recent cross-national studies report that PR systems are associated with a larger gender gap compared with plurality systems (Beauregard, 2014; Nir & McClurg, 2015). Our assessment of this literature indicates that empirical results on the impacts of gender quotas and PR are mixed even across studies examining similar indicators of political engagement.

This brief review of the literature highlights the need for further investigation into how political institutions can promote women’s political engagement around the world. We examine the effect of CV on the gender gap, taking into account the expected outcomes of gender quotas and PR systems (i.e., a higher numeric representation of women in the legislature and a higher degree of electoral proportionality). In the following pages, we first discuss why countries with mandatory voting laws are likely to show a narrower gender gap in voter turnout. Then, we engage in a theoretical discussion on why CV also has the potential to narrow the gender gap in other types of political engagement, particularly those associated with the electoral process.

CV and the Gender Gap in Voter Turnout

Scholars have found consistent evidence that voter turnout rates are higher in countries where voting is compulsory (Birch, 2009; Blais, 2006; Brockington, 2004), particularly when costly sanctions, such as fines, are strictly enforced (Panagopoulos, 2008; Singh, 2011).² As participation rates are maximized, CV is expected to also produce more equal voter turnout rates (Gallego, 2015; Irwin, 1974; Lijphart, 1997). Gallego (2015) explains, “Compulsory voting is the only institution that, by itself, can achieve near-universal voter turnout rates . . . [as a result, it is a way] to achieve equality in participation by getting voting participation close to its ceiling” (pp. 50-51). Accordingly, empirical studies have shown that CV reduces the gap in voter turnout between low-and high-income voters (Fowler, 2013; Singh, 2015), educated and less educated citizens (Gallego, 2015), and young and older individuals (Irwin, 1974; Singh, 2011, 2015). To this date, however, the impacts of CV on the gender gap in voter turnout and other behavioral and attitudinal political outcomes remain largely understudied.³

Similar to studies demonstrating the potential of CV to help achieve more equal turnout between certain subpopulations, we expect to find a narrower gender gap in voter turnout in countries with CV laws, especially when enforcement mechanisms are in place to ensure citizens abide by the law. When voting is enforced, the cost of abstaining is higher than the cost of voting (e.g., Panagopoulos, 2008), incentivizing nearly all eligible citizens to cast a ballot. Hence, although women typically face a higher cost of voting due to their more limited time and access to other resources, enforced CV laws should generate strong incentives for women to go to the polls. In the aggregate, women should then vote at comparable levels to men. Based on these expectations, we derive the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1 (H1): The gender gap in voter turnout should be smaller in countries with enforced CV laws, compared with countries where voting is voluntary.

CV and the Gender Gap in Electoral Engagement Beyond Voting

Even if CV laws produce higher and more equal voter turnout rates, critics of this institution suggest it might simply force individuals to cast a ballot without truly making them more engaged with the electoral process (Brennan & Hill, 2014; Briggs & Chelis, 2010). In other words, CV might result in more uninformed voters and thus in more wasted votes. In light of this concern, scholars have recently turned their attention to exploring the substantive impacts of mandatory voting (e.g., Birch, 2009; Dalton & Weldon, 2007; Jensen & Spoon, 2011; Mackerras & McAllister, 1999; Singh & Thornton, 2013). We contribute to this burgeoning literature by examining the broader impact of CV on women’s electoral engagement.

We theorize that enforced CV laws make it more likely for women to receive and seek information on competing political parties, motivating them to engage with the electoral process as a whole. As a result, we should observe a narrower gender gap in electoral engagement beyond simply voting in countries where voting is mandatory. We argue that this expected effect is driven by two reinforcing mechanisms; enforced CV laws (a) reduce the cost of accessing electoral information for women by increasing the supply of political information, and (b) create a stronger sunk cost effect among women than men, motivating women in particular to seek electoral information during electoral campaigns. We elaborate on the theoretical basis for each mechanism next.

First, mandatory voting laws change the information environment during electoral campaigns by increasing the salience of political discussion (Birch, 2009; Shineman, 2012). As the number of potential voters increases so does the probability of being exposed to electoral information through informal conversations, creating dense political networks (Huckfeldt & Sprague, 1995). Consequently, although women have more limited involvement in civic groups that facilitate the flow of political information, CV laws reduce women’s cost of acquiring political information during electoral campaigns.

Moreover, political parties themselves are likely to increase the supply of electoral information for women. Scholars argue that, as all citizens are equally likely to vote in enforced CV systems, mandatory laws create strong incentives for political parties competing for votes to reach out to all individuals (Lijphart, 1997). Parties should facilitate the dissemination of electoral messages to women, and in this way also contribute to reducing the high information costs that females typically face under VV. Taken together, these theorized effects have important implications for the gender gap. As women in VV systems are more likely to have limited access to information on their electoral choices than men, CV systems should make women particularly likely to acquire electoral information in comparison with men and their female counterparts in VV countries, reducing the gender gap.

Second, knowing that voting is a requirement election after election and that the cost of abstaining is high, enforced CV systems create strong incentives for citizens in general to seek political information and engage with the electoral process. Engelen (2007), for example, suggests that, “having to vote anyway, citizens might well want to know what the vote is about and what the alternatives are” (p. 32). As such, CV laws create a “sunk cost effect” (Arkes & Blumer, 1985)—meaning that because individuals are aware they will incur a non-recoverable or sunk cost, they are motivated to continue on a course of action to avoid waste. In enforced CV systems, citizens are then more likely to perceive voting as an expensive sunk cost (Shineman, 2012), which they try to redeem by seeking information about their electoral choices to avoid wasting their vote. Empirical research finds support for this effect; when the cost of abstaining is high, individuals find it “rational to invest in information” during electoral campaigns (Shineman, 2009, p. 5).

Sunk cost effects created by enforced CV, however, should be stronger for women than men. Literature in psychology shows that when a sunk cost represents a higher proportion of an individual’s endowment, the more likely it is that this individual will find it worthwhile to invest further resources in a given endeavor to avoid waste (Garland & Newport, 1991). This is because individuals with fewer resources are more likely to perceive a higher sunk cost associated with a given activity than individuals with more resources. Consequently, as women typically have fewer resources for effectively participating in politics compared with men, women should be more likely to perceive a higher sunk cost associated with voting in election after election compared with men. As a result, on average, women in countries with enforced CV laws will be particularly inclined to seek information on their voting choices during electoral campaigns compared with men in these countries, and also to their female counterparts in countries with VV.

The mechanisms described above suggest that mandatory voting can attenuate two main constraints for the acquisition of political information for women—lack of opportunities and motivation (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996). More opportunities to be exposed to and greater motivation to search for political information as women seek to make an informed voting decision should result in higher aggregate levels of engagement with the electoral process and its main actors, such as political parties. Moreover, our previous discussion suggests that as women are more likely to receive and seek information, these two mechanisms reinforce one another and together contribute to a smaller gender gap in electoral engagement beyond voting. Accordingly, our second hypothesis reads as follows:

Hypothesis 2 (H2): The gender gap in electoral engagement beyond voting should be smaller in countries with enforced CV laws, compared with countries where voting is voluntary.

Similar to previous studies, our theoretical insights suggest that various forms of electoral engagement should be observed in tandem as voters seek to cast a reasoned vote in enforced CV systems. The pursuit of an informed electoral decision is a multifaceted process that triggers various political behaviors and predispositions (Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). We expect that voters, including women, seeking to make an informed voting decision will be more attentive to electoral messages during electoral campaigns (Hutchings, 2003), and in the process also become more informed about their electoral choices (Holbrook, 2002). Greater access to information on their voting choices should also facilitate the formation of preferences on political parties (Lau & Redlawsk, 2006). Indeed, our theory suggests that, in CV countries, the primary reason why women seek information to start with is their desire to avoid wasting their vote and thus identify the political party that best aligns with their views and interests. The data we employ allow us to examine multiple forms of electoral engagement among men and women across countries with varying voting laws.

Data, Measurement, and Methods

We test our hypotheses using post-election survey data gathered between 1996 and 2011 in three waves of the CSES. The number of countries included in our models varies from 44 to 32, and the corresponding number of post-election surveys ranges from 104 to 32, depending on whether an item was included in all three waves of the survey in a given country.⁴ To the best of our knowledge, we offer the most comprehensive study on the impact of CV on the gender gap in terms of both the scope of data used (up to three waves of the CSES) and the number of dependent variables examined.

Dependent Variables

To test our first hypothesis, we rely on a measure of voting, which records whether a respondent declared that he or she cast a ballot in the most recent election (either presidential or legislative). This variable is included in all three waves of the survey, and is coded 1 if individuals reported voting in the most recent election, or 0 if they reported not voting. Although voting is typically over-reported in survey interviews, and this is true in the CSES survey as well (Netscher, 2010), previous studies in the United States and elsewhere find no gender differences in over-reporting of voting (Karp & Brockington, 2005). Therefore, given that our focus is on gender differences rather than on overall voter turnout rates, we do not expect our main conclusions to be affected by over-reporting.

To test our second hypothesis, we use four indicators of electoral engagement available in the CSES survey for a wide range of countries with varying voting laws. The first one allows us to examine our theoretical notion that CV laws facilitate the acquisition of information on voting choices, particularly for women. We create an indicator variable on political party information, based on the following question in the last two waves of the survey:

I would like to know what you think about each of our political parties. After I read the name of a political party, please rate it on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 means you strongly dislike that party and 10 means that you strongly like that party. If I come to a party you haven’t heard of or you feel you do not know enough about, just say so. The first party is . . . ”⁵

Although providing an answer on the 0 to 10 scale on this question does not necessarily mean that a respondent has deep knowledge about a political party, individuals who do not select “have not heard of” or “do not know enough about” as an answer are likely to possess a minimum amount of information on a political party, at least on average. This is particularly the case because the CSES only includes on the list the “most popular” parties that competed in the election prior to the survey (i.e., those with the highest percentage of votes). We code political party information equal to 1 if respondents have an opinion on all political parties on the list, or 0 if they selected “have not heard of” or “do not know much about” as an answer for at least one of the listed political parties.⁶

The CSES data also contain a survey item that allows us to evaluate the effect of CV on the propensity to seek information during electoral campaigns—another important link in our theory. A common way to assess information seeking based on survey data is to ask respondents to what extent they followed the news on a given political event (Crigler, Just, & Belt, 2006; Rokkan, 2009; Valentino, Hutchings, Banks, & Davis, 2008). The CSES includes a similar item on campaign attentiveness in the third wave of the survey, which asks, “How closely did you follow the election campaign? Very closely, fairly closely, not very closely, or not closely at all?” To simplify the data analysis, we code campaign attentiveness as 1 if individuals report having followed the election campaign “very closely” or “fairly closely,” or 0 if they responded “not very closely” or “not closely at all.”⁷

Another underlying assumption of our theory is that the political information acquired when voting is enforced will aid citizens in the identification of a preferred political party. Therefore, compared with VV systems, in enforced CV systems women in particular should be more likely to express sympathy or preference for a given political party. To examine this specific effect, we take into account an additional measure of electoral engagement, political party attachment. We measure an individuals’ political party attachment using the following question included in the three waves of the CSES survey: “Do you usually think of yourself as close to any particular party?” This variable is coded 1 if individuals report feeling “close” to a party or 0 otherwise. In addition, the CSES data enable us to explore if CV is associated with direct participation in electoral campaigns to support a political party. The question on campaign participation in the survey asks, “Here is a list of things some people do during elections. Did you show your support for a particular party or candidate by, for example, attending a meeting, putting up a poster, or in some other way?” Positive responses are coded 1 and 0 otherwise.

We provide descriptive data on the size and statistical significance of the gender gap for each of our five dependent variables in the supplemental materials published online (see Figures A1-A5). The gender gap in voting (where women turn out at lower rates than men) is statistically significant in almost one third of the countries in our sample, and the largest of those gaps reaches up to 13 percentage points. By contrast, women engage in the other four forms of electoral engagement we examine at significantly lower rates than men in the majority of countries. The size of the gender gap also varies considerably across these four dependent variables, with some countries showing statically significant gender gaps as small as 2.1% or as large as 24% on a given indicator.

Core Independent Variables

At the individual level, the main independent variable of interest is gender, coded 1 for female and 0 for male respondents. At the aggregate level, our core independent variable is a CV index computed based on the coding scheme proposed by Panagopoulos (2008) and adapted by Singh (2011), using data from the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).⁸ We code each post-election survey according to the voting system in place at the time of the most recent election accounting for both the severity of sanctions and the degree of sanction enforcement in countries with CV.

The extent of sanction severity in compulsory systems ranges from fines to infringements of civil rights or disenfranchisement. The severity of sanctions is classified into three different levels: low or no sanctions (when no justification or merely a written explanation for abstention is required), moderate sanctions (when those who abstained face only fines), and severe sanctions (when those who abstained face fines and civil rights infringements or disenfranchisement). Enforcement is classified into three different levels: absent or low, moderate, and strict. The final CV index is constructed by combining both the severity of sanctions and the enforcement of those sanctions. The following values are assigned: 0 if voting is non-compulsory, 1 if voting is compulsory but both sanctions and enforcement are low, 2 if voting is compulsory but both sanctions and enforcement are moderate, 3 if voting is compulsory and either sanctions or enforcement are high, and a 4 if voting is compulsory and both sanctions and enforcement are high.⁹ To estimate the impact of CV on the gender gap, we specify an interaction term between female and the CV index. In the online appendix, we present the values of the index for each country with a CV system in the sample (see Table A2).

Control Variables

At the individual level, we control for education and income to account for the well-established effect of socioeconomic status on participation (Brady et al., 1995; Verba, Nie, & Kim, 1978). Additionally, we add a control variable for the age of the respondent along with a quadratic term for age to capture the possibility of an inverted U-shaped relationship between age and electoral engagement. At the aggregate level, we include in our models a variable that measures the percentage of women in the legislature, and interact this variable with female.¹⁰ In addition, we interact female with a variable that measures the proportionality of electoral outcomes based on Gallagher’s (1991) index, which compares the percentage of votes to the percentage of seats parties obtain in a legislative election.

We also control for the effective number of electoral parties (ENP) to account for two competing effects that can potentially confound the impact of CV. A larger number of competing parties can increase electoral engagement by providing citizens a wider variety of political choices, or it can discourage electoral engagement by making it more difficult to obtain information on each of the contending political parties (Blais & Carty, 1990; Blais & Dobrzynska, 1998). Moreover, as the degree of economic development and democracy can also affect citizens’ political involvement (Norris, 2003), we control for the level of economic development (Gross Domestic Product [GDP] per capita) and democracy (Freedom House scores). Furthermore, since presidential elections report higher levels of voter turnout than legislative ones (Franklin, 1996; Franklin & Hirczy, 1998), we control for election type with a dummy variable coded 1 if the survey was carried out after a presidential election or 0 for post-legislative election surveys.

Methods

We rely on multilevel modeling techniques to take into account the nested structure of our data in the estimation of standard errors (Snijders & Bosker, 2012). One important feature of our data stands out: Observations are clustered at different levels of analysis, and levels vary slightly depending on the dependent variable. For voting, political party information, campaign attentiveness, and political party attachment, the data are clustered at three levels: respondents i nested within post-election surveys k, and post-election surveys nested within countries j.¹¹ The model specification for these four dependent variables is as follows:

\begin{array}{l} Y_{i k j} = β_{0} + α_{1} C V I n d e x_{1 k j} + β_{1} F e m a l e_{1 i k j} + γ_{1} C V I n d e x_{1 k j} \times Femal e_{1 i k j} + α_{2} P e r c e n t W o m e n L e g i s_{\cdot 2 k j} \\ + γ_{2} P e r c e n t W o m e n L e g i s_{2 k j} \times {Female}_{1 i k j} + α_{3} P r o p o r t i o n a l i t y_{3 k j} \\ + γ_{3} P r o p o r t i o n a l i t y_{3 k j} \times {Female}_{1 i k j} \dots + α_{n} X_{n k j} + \dots β_{n} X_{n i k j} \\ + E r r o r T e r m \end{array}

where $α_{n} X_{n k j}$ are country-year control variables, and β_nX_nikj are individual-level control variables.

The survey item on political campaign participation was asked only in one wave of the CSES survey and the sample includes only one post-election survey for each country, which means that the data are clustered at two levels: respondents i nested within countries j. In this case, j=k:

\begin{array}{l} Y_{i j} = β_{0} + α_{1} C V I n d e x_{1 j} + β_{1} F e m a l e_{1 i j} + γ_{1} C V I n d e x_{1 j} \times Femal e_{1 i j} + α_{2} P e r c e n W o m e n L e g i s_{2 j} \\ + γ_{2} P e r c e n t W o m e n L e g i s_{2 j} \times {Female}_{1 i j} + α_{3} P r o p o r t i o n a l i t y_{3 j} \\ + γ_{3} P r o p o r t i o n a l i t y_{3 j} \times {Female}_{1 i j} \dots + α_{n} X_{n j} + \dots β_{n} X_{n i j} + E r r o r T e r m \end{array}

Following Snijders and Bosker’s (2012) recommendation, we test the statistical significance of cross-level effects (e.g., between female and the CV index) without assuming a priori a random slope for our individual-level variable of interest (i.e., female).¹² Therefore, the models we present only assume random effects for the intercept. Our results, however, remain substantively unchanged when we specify a random coefficient for female (see Table D2). As all our dependent variables are coded as binary, we estimate logistic multilevel models.

Findings: The Gendered Effects of CV on Electoral Engagement

Table 1 presents the results of our empirical analyses based on the model specifications depicted in equations 1 and 2 above. The coefficient for the interaction term between female and the CV index is positive and statistically significant across our five models (p < .001). Although all constituent terms associated with an interaction term need to be taken into account simultaneously (Kam & Franzese, 2007), this result suggests that CV is consistently associated with higher electoral engagement, particularly among women.

Table 1.

Effect of Compulsory Voting on Women’s Electoral Engagement.

	(1)Voting	(2)Political party information	(3)Campaign attentiveness	(4)Political party attachment	(5)Campaign participation
CV index	0.580*** (0.091)	0.743** (0.263)	0.064 (−0.093)	0.299** (0.108)	0.166 (0.146)
Female	−0.358*** (0.063)	−0.706*** (0.070)	−0.534*** (0.080)	−0.319*** (0.045)	−0.196^† (0.108)
Female × CV index	0.090*** (0.024)	0.093*** (0.020)	0.072*** (0.020)	0.045*** (0.013)	0.096*** (0.029)
% Women in legislature	0.021* (0.010)	−0.011 (0.024)	0.011 (0.01)	0.002 (0.012)	−0.006 (0.013)
Female × % Women in legislature	0.009*** (0.002)	0.002 (0.002)	0.005* (0.002)	0.005*** (0.001)	−0.001 (0.004)
Proportionality	0.008 (0.019)	−0.026 (0.046)	−0.051^† (0.027)	0.007 (0.021)	−0.037^† (0.022)
Female × Proportionality	−0.012** (0.004)	−0.009* (0.004)	0.005 (0.006)	−0.001 (0.003)	0.021*** (0.005)
Effective number of parties	−0.097* (0.046)	−0.022 (0.110)	−0.113** (0.042)	−0.073 (0.051)	0.022 (0.074)
Democracy level	−0.217* (0.093)	−0.049 (0.162)	−0.053 (0.064)	0.111 (0.077)	−0.271 (0.215)
Log GDP per capita	0.421 (0.260)	1.880** (0.585)	0.751** (0.255)	−0.299 (0.258)	0.405 (0.412)
Presidential election	0.680** (0.239)	−0.973 (0.645)	1.256*** (0.263)	−0.062 (0.249)	0.028 (0.343)
Education	0.187*** (0.006)	0.187*** (0.006)	0.186*** (0.006)	0.068*** (0.004)	0.106*** (0.010)
Income level	0.155*** (0.007)	0.114*** (0.008)	0.096*** (0.007)	0.061*** (0.005)	0.011 (0.013)
Age	0.080*** (0.003)	0.043*** (0.003)	0.009** (0.003)	0.012*** (0.002)	0.013* (0.005)
Age squared	−0.001*** (0.000)	−0.000*** (0.000)	0.000** (0.000)	0.000** (0.000)	−0.000 (0.000)
Constant	−3.272^† (1.981)	−17.815*** (5.064)	−8.571*** (2.153)	0.655 (2.175)	−3.790 (2.507)
n	138,074	98,081	55,660	134,651	40,555
Num. countries	44	40	35	43	32
Num. elections	104	77	44	104	32

Standard errors in parenthesis. Results based on logistic multilevel models with random effects for the intercept. CV = compulsory voting; GDP = gross domestic product.

†

p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

To fully evaluate the impact of CV on the gender gap, we first estimate mean predicted probabilities separately for men and women at each point of the CV index for a given dependent variable, based on the results presented in Table 1 (see Panels A of Figures 1 -5). We then proceed to estimate the average gender gap across countries at each point of the CV index. The gap is the difference in the mean predicted probabilities between men and women, with negative values indicating lower electoral engagement among women than men.¹³ Panels B of Figures 1 to 5 present the average gender gap across values of the CV index, and its respective 95% confidence intervals. If confidence intervals cross the zero line, this indicates that the gender gap is not statistically significant. The graphic representations of our results show remarkably similar patterns across all five modes of electoral engagement we study.

The results for voting depicted in Figure 1 provide strong support for H1. Panel A indicates that when the CV index takes its maximum value, the probability of voting is almost universal for all citizens. As the CV index takes higher values, the probability of voting increases substantially for men and women, but this effect is stronger for women. Panel B, in turn, shows that although the average gender gap in voting is statistically significant in countries with VV (CV index = 0) and equal to 2.1%, the gap is no longer statistically different from zero when sanctions and enforcement are moderate (CV index = 2). The gender gap in voting vanishes at relatively moderate levels of the CV index, likely because the average gap is relatively small in VV countries, although its size varies substantially across these countries.

When we examine forms of electoral engagement beyond voting, we find strong support for H2. In the case of political party information, Panel A of Figure 2 shows that women’s probability of having information on political parties increases at a higher rate than men’s as the CV index takes higher values. In fact, when the CV index takes its maximum value (= 4), political party information gets very close to its ceiling level for both men and women. As can be observed in Panel B, while in VV countries the average gender gap is statistically significant and equal to 7.9%, the gap decreases sharply at higher values of the CV index until it is no longer statistically significant (i.e., confidence intervals cross the zero line).

We also observe similar trends for campaign attentiveness (see Figure 3). Panel A shows that enforced CV is associated with a sharper increase in women’s likelihood of following campaigns compared with men, contributing to a decline in the gender gap. When voting is voluntary, the gender gap in campaign attentiveness is statistically significant and equal to 11.2% (see Panel B of Figure 3); yet, this gap drops to 4.4% when voting is compulsory and sanctions and enforcement are high (CV index = 4). Albeit smaller, the gender gap in campaign attentiveness remains statistically significant at the highest level of the CV index (i.e., confidence intervals do not contain the zero value).

Similar patterns are also observed for the last two indicators of electoral engagement—political party attachment and campaign participation. Panel A of Figure 4 shows that, as the CV index take higher values, both male and females are more likely to report feeling attached to a party, although this effect is stronger for women. Indeed, Panel B of Figure 4 indicates that the gender gap in political party attachment shrinks from 5.2 to virtually zero as the CV index goes from 0 to 4. For campaign participation, the CV index varies from 0 to 3 as there are no countries in the sample with a value of 4 on the index. Despite the inclusion of fewer cases, we find that our hypothesized relationship still holds for this dependent variable, suggesting that our findings are not artificially the result of a relatively large sample size.¹⁴ Panel A of Figure 5 shows that participation rates become more comparable between men and women at higher levels of the CV index. In VV countries, the average gender gap in the probability of campaign participation is statistically significant and equal to 3.7%, but this difference is not statistically significant at the highest value of the CV index (see Panel B of Figure 5).

Notably, the effect of CV on the gender gap holds for all forms of electoral engagement we examine even when we account for women’s numeric representation and proportionality (see Table 1), and also when in additional models we consider the impact of gender quotas and PR per se (see Tables C2 and C3). Although our results on CV are consistent across models, similar to previous studies (e.g. Beauregard, 2014; Clayton, 2015; Nir & McClurg, 2015), we find that inclusive institutions previously theorized to narrow the gender gap in political engagement yield inconsistent results.¹⁵

Further Analyses and Robustness Checks

Our theoretical framework suggests that women in enforced CV systems in particular engage with the electoral process to avoid wasting their vote. Consequently, it is implied that mandatory voting should be more strongly associated with smaller gender gaps in electoral than non-electoral forms of political involvement. In this section, we examine the effect of CV on three variables available in the CSES survey that are not expected to be as strongly associated with the electoral process: contacting a public official, participation in protests, and factual knowledge on domestic politics and foreign affairs.¹⁶ First, when we look at the correlations of these three variables with voting behavior, we find that they are indeed not as strongly correlated with voting compared with the four dependent variables in our main analyses, indicating a weaker association with the electoral process. Our additional statistical analyses show that CV does not result in significantly smaller gender gaps in these three proxies of non-electoral engagement. ¹⁷ Taken together, these analyses indicate that CV has a stronger effect on the gender gap in electoral than non-electoral political engagement.

Another implicit assumption in our theory is that the outcomes we examine should be observed in tandem in countries with enforced CV. In these countries, a woman, for instance, will be more likely to report participation in multiple forms of electoral engagement. To confirm that the average effects we present above are not simply capturing scattered patterns of electoral engagement, we re-estimate our models using a count index as a dependent variable, which reflects the total number of positive responses provided by the same individual across different modes of electoral engagement.¹⁸ Our results lend strong support to the theoretical notion that CV increases the chances for a given individual to engage in multiple aspects of the electoral process, particularly for women. The gender gap in the probability of reporting involvement in multiple forms of electoral engagement is considerably smaller in countries with enforced CV.

Additionally, we perform a series of tests to check the robustness of our results to alternative measures of our CV index, and to the inclusion of other control variables. If we simply recode the CV index as a binary variable (coded 1 for CV and 0 for voluntary), we also find a declining gender gap in all forms of electoral engagement, but this measure tends to underestimate the effect of CV on the gender gap, highlighting the importance of considering sanctions and enforcement levels.¹⁹ We also measure CV as a categorical rather a continuous variable. To increase the number of cases in a given category and be able to perform this test with a higher level of precision, we recode the original 5-point CV index into three categories and conduct the analyses for the dependent variables included in at least two waves of the CSES.²⁰ In these models, we also observe that predicted probabilities increase at higher rate for women than men, resulting in smaller gender gaps at higher levels of enforcement (see Table D7 and Figures D1-D3).

Our results also remain substantively unchanged after we control for several individual-level variables, including membership in a civic group, urban or rural residence, marital status, and attitudes toward the political system as measured by satisfaction with democracy and political efficacy (see Tables D8-D16). Given that first round and runoff elections might motivate different political behavior patterns, we also conduct a robustness test to account for this likely effect by controlling for surveys conducted after first round or runoff elections and find similar results (see Table D17). Moreover, because simply controlling for other country-level variables might underestimate the effect of such variables on the gender gap, we interact all aggregate-level control variables in our models with female. We find that accounting for the impact of GDP per capita, the level of democracy, and ENP on the gender gap does not alter our conclusions on the effect of CV (see Table D18). Our results are also robust when outlier countries, showing the smallest or largest gender gap on a given dependent variable, are excluded from our main analysis (see Table D19). All in all, the empirical evidence confirms that enforced CV is a strong and robust predictor of a smaller gender gap in several forms of electoral engagement.

Conclusion

Our findings on the gender gap are consistent with the observation that the problem of political inequality can be ameliorated by “institutional mechanisms that maximize turnout” (Lijphart, 1997, p. 1). The theory and results presented in this article indicate that this assertion comes with an important qualification—enforced CV is more likely to result in narrower gender gaps in electoral than non-electoral forms of political engagement. As women in countries where voting is enforced by law have more opportunities and incentives to cast an informed vote, they are more likely to engage with the electoral process at rates more comparable to men’s, resulting in smaller or even non-existent gender gaps in multiple indicators of electoral engagement beyond voting.

More specifically, our results show that women in enforced CV systems are more likely to acquire information on political parties and feel close to a political party. We also find evidence supporting the theoretical notion that women living under CV systems are more likely to seek the political information they need to cast an informed vote—the gender gap in the probability of following electoral campaigns is significantly smaller when voting is mandatory. Notably, women in these countries are not simply passively absorbing electoral information as its supply increases or as they seek political information during campaigns, but they are also becoming active participants in the electoral process by directly getting involved in electoral campaigns to support their preferred political party. In sum, CV laws can help narrow the gender gap in voting where a gap still exists, and more importantly can empower women to become more engaged with the entire electoral process, ultimately contributing to the achievement of more equal rates of electoral engagement between men and women. These effects surface even after we take into account the expected outcomes of gender quotas and PR, two political institutions theorized in the literature to reduce the gender gap in political involvement.

While our research provides comprehensive evidence of a strong association between CV and gender equality in electoral engagement, further research is necessary to investigate their causal relationship. Given the lack of long time-series survey data, the comparison of rates of political engagement before and after the implementation or abolition of CV across a large number of countries is a challenging task. Previous studies, however, have demonstrated the usefulness of single case studies that rely on experimental or quasi-experimental data for investigating the counterfactual question of what would happen in the absence of CV (e.g., Fowler, 2013; Shineman, 2009). We see this line of research as a fruitful approach to further investigate the causal effects of CV for gender equality on outcomes beyond voting.

The theory and analysis we present in this article, however, complement this research agenda as they indicate that the relationship between mandatory voting and women’s electoral engagement enjoys external validity across a large number of countries. Our research contributes to the current debate among policy makers and scholars about how the adoption of certain political institutions and their design can result in more representative democracies by making marginalized groups–—in our case, women—more politically active. All in all, our results suggest that enforced CV laws can help level the playing field in electoral engagement between men and women, and consequently result in more participatory and representative democracies.

Supplemental Material

Supplementary_CPS – Supplemental material for Addressing the Gender Gap

Supplemental material, Supplementary_CPS for Addressing the Gender Gap by Abby Córdova and Gabriela Rangel in Comparative Political Studies

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Emily Beaulieu, Mark Peffley, Shane Singh, Rick Waterman, and Justin Wedeking for their valuable feedback on previous drafts of this article. We are also grateful to the editors at Comparative Political Studies and anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments. The authors also thank the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) and their collaborators for making the data used in this project available. An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2014 Midwest Political Science Association conference, where we received very useful feedback from panel participants.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Abby Córdova is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Kentucky. Her research focuses on the impacts of social exclusion and inequality on public opinion and political behavior, particularly in the Latin American context.

Gabriela Rangel is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Kentucky. Her research examines the impacts of electoral laws, particularly voting systems, on the behavior of citizens and political elites.

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