Männerparteien ? The Gender Gap in Radical Right Voting

In most countries, men are more likely to vote for radical right parties than women. This paper contributes to our understanding of this – yet to be explained – gender gap. For doing so, I look at the radical right votes in the last European elections in 22 countries, using data from the European Election Voter Study (2019). I take an exploratory approach and systematically analyze whether and to what extent socio-economic indicators and issue positions contribute to the gender gap in voting for radical right-wing parties. In a first step, I examine how gender differences in means of key socio-economic indicators and issue positions contribute to the gap by conducting a linear decomposition analysis. I complement these analyses with linear regressions models to investigate the gender differences in the effects of different variables on radical right voting (i.e., different slopes). The results suggest that 36% of the gender gap in voting for radical right parties is explained by differences in means in socio-economic indicators and men’s and women’s issue positions. I also show that the positive effect of ideological placement on the left-right scale on radical right voting is weaker for women. Finally, some explanations of radical right voting are gender-specific. Being in favour of state intervention in the economy, for example, motivates radical right voting only for women. This paper has important implications for our understanding of gender dynamics in voting behaviour.