The Ex-Factor: Examining the Gendered Effect of Divorce on Voter Turnout

Abstract

The absence of a gendered analysis of the effect of marriage on voting is surprising given researchers’ cognizance of the heterogeneous effects of marriage on a range of other social outcomes. In this paper, we shed new light on spousal dependency by studying the gendered effect of marital disruption, in the form of divorce, on voter turnout. First, drawing on Swedish populationwide data, we use the differential timing of divorces in relation to general elections to generate more credible estimates of the causal effect of divorce on turnout. Second, although we find that both sexes are adversely affected by divorce, we show that the effect is much more pronounced for men. Specifically, the long-term effect is almost twice as large for men. Finally, we use these data to show that the gendered effect of divorce is mainly driven by asymmetrical spousal mobilization due to higher levels of turnout among women.

Modern Family? The Gendered Effects of Marriage and Childbearing on Voter Turnout

“…19 Yet, the next rows show that young and middle-aged women are more likely to vote than men of the same age. This difference is larger among voters aged 26-45, though it narrows over their life course and flips among the elderly in line with patterns observed in other established democracies (Bratsberg et al 2019;Dehdari et al 2022;Leighley and Nagler 2013).…”

“…1 shows that, in the US and (Northern) Italy, the association between gender and turnout depends on age: Whereas young women tend to vote at higher rates than men of the same age, this difference narrows among middle-aged voters, and reverses among the elderly. Similar patterns hold in other advanced industrial societies such as Sweden (Dehdari et al 2022) and Norway (Bratsberg et al 2019). 1 To explain this gender-by-age variation, prior work focuses mostly on cross-national comparisons and within-country generational differences (Inglehart and Norris 2003).…”

“…1 shows that, in the US and (Northern) Italy, the association between gender and turnout depends on age: Whereas young women tend to vote at higher rates than men of the same age, this difference narrows among middle-aged voters, and reverses among the elderly. Similar patterns hold in other advanced industrial societies such as Sweden (Dehdari et al 2022) and Norway (Bratsberg et al 2019). 1

Figure 1.Voter turnout by age and gender in the US and Bologna, Italy: (a) US – Current Population Survey (CPS) Self-reported turnout, (b) Bologna, Italy – turnout based on administrative data. Notes : (a) Shows self-reported voter turnout by age and gender based on CPS data for the 2008–2018 US general elections; (b) Shows average voter turnout by age and gender based on our administrative data from Bologna, Italy, covering the 2004 and 2009 European and municipal elections and the 2008 and 2013 national parliamentary elections.

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“…Recent work conducted in Scandinavia and the US has begun studying the interplay between gender attitudes and socio-economic factors within the household. Dehdari et al (2022), for example, show that Swedish men now tend to 'marry up' when it comes to voting participation, potentially due to higher levels of female education, on average, but divorce also has a stronger negative effect on men's turnout than on women's. Bernhard, Shames, and Teele (2021) find that US women who have bread-winning responsibilities are less likely to run for office.…”

“…However, marriage as an institution is in itself associated with greater responsibility and stability. This may differently affect the voter turnout results between women and men, given that the consequences of marriage on other social outcomes are often gendered (Dehdari et al 2022). Yet, there are strong theoretical reasons to expect that the direction and magnitude of these gendered effects will depend on household context.…”