The proposed paper investigates the relationship between socioeconomic resources and the electoral turnout of women in Switzerland, more precisely whether the distinction between individual, household and contextual resources helps to identify different mechanism behind a possible “resource effect”. This research topic is significant in at least three ways. First, not only resources stemming from individual socioeconomic status may influence political behaviour in helping to overcome the costs of political participation, but also contextual resources relating to the household background or to gender norms of a region in general. Second, in spite of the still existing gender gap in electoral turnout of Switzerland, this research field has been under-investigated. The focus of the paper is to examine how and to what degree not only individual but also contextual resources influence women’s political participation, more precisely their electoral turnout. Third, most research on gender differences in political engagement focuses on the gap between men and women whereas women themselves are a very heterogeneous group and therefore worth to investigate. Based on the assumption that the lower political participation of women is due to educational and professional disadvantages, resulting in lower stocks of resources necessary for political participation, it is assumed that the higher the level of individual, household and regional resources is, the higher the electoral turnout of women. The applied multilevel approach thereby allows to integrate individual and contextual factors and to test their relationships and interactions.
