The Urban Disadvantage: How Geography Shapes Women’s Turnout in Pakistan

• In Event: Women’s Political, Economic, and Social Lives in Muslim-Majority Countries

Abstract

How does place shape women's political participation and the gender gap in voter turnout? Drawing on fine-grained data from the 2018 National Elections in Pakistan, we identify a puzzle: despite higher education, greater agency and lower household dependency ratios, women in Pakistan's urban areas turnout to vote at lower rates than their rural counterparts. To explain this, we turn to data from a nationally representative public opinion poll, a 2500 household survey, and field observations conducted just prior to the 2018 Election. We develop an inductive place-based theory of women's voter turnout highlighting the role of mobilization, mobility and preference divergence to help understand the “gendered urban disadvantage”. We reaffirm that the effects of urbanization on democratic participation are gendered in nature and that an accounting of contextual factors is critical for a fuller understanding of gender gaps in political participation.

Authors

• Ali Cheema, Lahore University of Management Sciences

• Sarah Khan, American University-SIS

• Shandana Khan Mohmand, Institute of Development Studies

• Shanze Fatima Rauf, University of Pennsylvania