How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa

Abstract

While gender gaps in political participation are pervasive, especially in developing countries, this study provides systematic evidence of one cultural practice that closes this gap. Using data from across Africa, this article shows that matrilineality – tracing kinship through the female line – is robustly associated with closing the gender gap in political participation. It then uses this practice as a lens through which to draw more general inferences. Exploiting quantitative and qualitative data from Malawi, the authors demonstrate that matrilineality's success in improving outcomes for women lies in its ability to sustain more progressive norms about the role of women in society. It sets individual expectations about the gendered beliefs and behaviors of other households in the community, and in a predictable way through the intergenerational transmission of the practice. The study tests and finds evidence against two competing explanations: that matrilineality works through its conferral of material resources alone, or by increasing education for girls.

From Thin to Thick Representation: How a Female President Shapes Female Parliamentary Behavior

“…This is not to say that women have been completely sidelined economically, culturally, and politically in Malawi. Indeed, much of the literature on cultural gender norms in Malawi has emphasized the importance of the country's mostly matrilineal culture for granting political and economic access for women both contemporarily and historically in a way that has not been the case in many other African countries (Muriaas et al 2019;Robinson and Gottlieb 2021). In terms of female political representation, Malawi in 2012 is slightly above the African and slightly below the global average.…”

(How) Do Voters Discriminate Against Women Candidates? Experimental and Qualitative Evidence From Malawi

“…Around two thirds of Malawians practice matrilineal kinship, in which familial belonging is traced through women, typically resulting in matrilocal residence patterns and women’s inheritance of land. Women in Malawi’s matrilineal groups also enjoy significantly more local power, including influence over chiefly successions and distributional conflicts, and tend to be more politically engaged than women from patrilineal groups (Robinson & Gottlieb, 2019). This variation allows us to test how cultural norms around women’s political participation affect citizen support for women candidates.…”

“…This is relatively rare in Malawi, due to significant ethnic clustering, but Kasungu includes the geographic boundary between areas dominated by the patrilineal Tumbuka and Ngoni to the north and matrilineal Chewa to the south (Robinson, 2016). As discussed above, previous research has shown that matrilineal cultural practices are associated with less gender disparities in citizens’ political engagement (Robinson & Gottlieb, 2019), and our focus on Kasungu district allows us to determine whether such differences in kinship also influence citizen support for women candidates. Second, there are two different local councils within Kasungu district, one for rural constituencies (18 members) and one for wards within Kasungu town (nine members).…”

Local Gender Norms: Persistence or Change? Reply to “A Gendered Resource Curse? Mineral Ownership, Female Unemployment and Domestic Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa” by Mario Krauser, Tim Wegenast, Gerald Schneider, and Ingeborg Elgersmar

“…Focusing on local inheritance norms in Germany around 1800, Hager and Hilbig (2019) report an ongoing positive effect of equal inheritance, in which inheritance is divided among siblings rather than given to the firstborn son, on the local election of females. Robinson and Gottlieb (2019) show a similar effect of local gender norms on political participation on the African continent. They examine the effect of kinship systems-measured around or before European colonization-on female political participation.…”

“…Local gender norms-such as inheritance rights, polygyny, and matrilineality-have critical social effects (e.g., Koos and Neupert-Wentz 2019;Robinson and Gottlieb 2019). In particular, these norms frequently have long-lasting effects on gender equality, which may persist long after the norms have been altered.…”