Urban rebels? A Gendered Approach to Young People’s Domicile and Protest in Nine European Countries

Engaging with research on protest politics and gender inequalities, we examine how gender dynamics play a crucial role in shaping patterns of youth political participation across the urban/rural divide. While robust empirical evidence supports the hypothesis of young people being more likely to engage in extra-institutional forms of activism there is little available research on how spatial mobility and gender dynamics matter in generating different protest participation. We argue that moving from rural to urban settings leads to an increase in protest participation for young women, but not for young men. Using a unique two-wave panel survey dataset collected for the same young individuals (aged 18-35) between 2018-2019 and covering nine European countries, we are able to go beyond traditional correlational analyses and measure our key variables over time, thus developing a dynamic approach that links variation in gender, geographical and social positioning, and protest participation. Our findings demonstrate that the urban/rural divide as a driver of protest affects young females and males differently as it is shaped by different experiences of socialization and politicization, socioeconomic relations, structures of domination and discrimination, as well as opportunities and incentives for participation.