Gender, politics, and the market: evidence from Finland

Abstract

We extend work on political consumerism by examining pre-behavioral stages and including people who have not yet engaged in a politically motivated boycott (opposition) or buycott (support). We analyze the effect of gender on both attitudes and behavior using data from four Finnish National Election Studies (covering 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019). Finland constitutes a rigorous test of the gender gap hypothesis: Scandinavia generally exhibits high rates of political consumerism and gender equality; combined, these conditions make a gender gap in Finland highly unlikely. Our data reveal the opposite, however. In gender-equal Finland, gender is a key predictor of political consumerism, both as attitudes toward future action and as past behavior. Moreover, attitudes toward both variants (buycott/boycott) are systematically gendered: among those who have never practiced political consumerism, men are systematically less likely and women are more likely to view the market as a channel of political expression.