The gender gap in voter turnout: An artefact of men’s over-reporting in survey research?

Abstract

Is there a gender gap in voting? Most cross-national survey research on gender inequalities in voter turnout finds that men have a higher probability to vote than women. Yet, some studies using validated turnout data shed some doubt on this finding. We revisit the question of a gender gap in voting using official records. In more detail, we compare the gender gap in turnout between survey data and official electoral figures across 73 elections. Our results highlight that in surveys, men still report higher turnout in most countries. However, official electoral figures reveal contrasting trends: across countries, women are, on average, more likely to vote. We also test two explanations for this difference in turnout between official figures and surveys: (1) men over-report voting more than women and (2) the survey samples of men and women are different. We find some, albeit very moderate, evidence for the first explanation and no support for the second explanation. All in all, our research nevertheless suggests that scholars should be careful in using surveys to detect gender differences in voting.