Context: This article untangles the effects of depression on voter turnout among blacks and whitesand among women and men and considers several factors-income, health insurance, church attendance, group consciousness, and empowerment-that may mitigate the negative effects of depression on turnout. Methods: The authors estimated regression models of voter turnout on depression across race and gender groups using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. They used interaction terms to assess whether the effect of depression is conditional on the potential mitigating factors. Findings: Reporting increased depressive symptoms was associated with a lower probability of voting across electoral contexts for all respondents, and few factors mitigated this negative effect. Only in the case of black men did the authors find that a coethnic candidate mitigated the negative effect of depression, while a higher level of group consciousness did the opposite. Conclusions: The effect of depression was strong, cut across racial and gender groups, and was generally robust to the effects of income, health insurance, church attendance, group consciousness, and empowerment. More research is required to understand how to reduce depression and improve turnout among those who experience it.

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Intersectionality situates the nexus of multiple marginalized identities, and this chapter argues its importance to the study of political participation. Intersectionality lessens the extent that differences are essentialized across groups, by examining the intersection of relevant identities. Grounded in Black feminist theory, this chapter examines how gender, race, ethnicity, and class influence women of color’s participation compared to their male counterparts. The chapter demonstrated how political participation research must consider how multiple identities—not just in isolation, but constitutive, and proximity to institutional access and power among women shape their engagement in the political process. Examining political participation and social movements must be historically and contextually informed by the group’s unique characteristics and the conclusions one seeks to draw about their engagement in the political process. Incorporating and intersectional framework is best suited to capture the distinctiveness in political participation of marginalized groups.

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