Post-Materialism and Women’s Representation

Over the last few decades political participation among women has increased significantly. This is especially true for voting. In many countries women turn out to vote at higher rates than men. Unfortunately this increase in voting has not translated into significant gains in women’s representation in legislative bodies. This fact made me wonder if women were more likely to vote for women candidates than male candidates. If this were true, what was the factor that influenced them to do so?

Post-Materialism

The missing link I wanted to explore was post-materialism. Post-materialism is a shifting of an individual’s values from material, physical and economic concerns to new values of autonomy and self-expression. When individuals and society become post-materialistic they become less concerned with issues of survival and more concerned with social, moral and political issues. My theory was that in post-materialist countries women’s turnout would have a greater effect on the percentage of women elected. Or more simply put, would make women more likely to vote for other women. Previous research showed a greater support for feminism and gender equality in societies that are increasingly post-materialistic. It also showed an increase in women’s political participation in economically developed countries, which are traditionally more post-materialistic. This logic supported my theory that women are more likely to vote for other women in these settings.

Tests and Findings

I decided to test my theory in two different ways. The first test looked at United States Congressional elections over time. I retrieved statistics from 1984 to 2014 regarding the percentage of women in office, women’s voter turnout in federal elections and the countries post-materialist value from the World Values Survey. I tested to see if the interaction between post-materialism and female turnout made a significant difference in the percentage of women elected to office. I controlled for education. Based on these results I could not confirm my theory. In my second test I compared 37 different countries for the year 2009. Countries from each region are represented and countries with gender quotas and/or compulsory voting laws were excluded. Again I collected data for the percentage of women in parliament, women’s voter turnout in federal elections and the countries post-materialist value from the World Values Survey. These results also showed that the interaction between post-materialism and women’s turnout did not have a significant effect on women in office. However, something as equally interesting was found. The results showed that the post-materialist value for a country had a significant effect on the percentage of women elected to office. Based on my results a ten point difference on the post-materialism index (which is roughly the difference between Turkey and Switzerland) results in an 8% increase in women in parliament. While these results do not support my theory that post-materialism increases the rate at which women vote for women, it does suggest that voters of both genders are more likely to vote for women in increasingly post-materialistic societies. I believe this subject merits further testing to fully understand the relationship between post-materialism and increasing women’s representation.