IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/wodepe/v38y2025ics2452292925000281.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are women more or less likely to vote than men? Evidence from rural Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Murshed, Rubaiya

Abstract

The established notion that men and women vote differently is well-documented, yet it remains unclear whether women are less likely to vote than men or, potentially, the reverse. Evidence on this topic is particularly scarce in Global South contexts. This paper addresses this gap by examining gender differences in voting behavior within rural Bangladesh. It also investigates the factors motivating women’s electoral participation, offering insights into the underlying reasons for any observed gender disparities. Rural Bangladesh remains understudied with regard to gendered electoral participation, despite significant structural transformations in its economy that may have reshaped gender dynamics across economic, social, and political spheres. Given its potential relevance as a model for similar contexts, this research provides a timely exploration of electoral gender dynamics in a setting of democratic fragility. Using nationally (rurally) representative Bangladesh Integrated Household Survey (BIHS) data and employing logit, Poisson, and propensity score matching models, the findings reveal a counterintuitive trend: women are more likely to vote than men and this is observed regardless of whether individuals are formal-educated or have never pursued formal education, and this trend is also more pronounced among younger cohorts. Additionally, married women exhibit a higher likelihood of voting, while formally educated women are less likely to participate. We contextualize these results within rural Bangladesh and propose several hypotheses to explain the observed gender differences in voting behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Murshed, Rubaiya, 2025. "Are women more or less likely to vote than men? Evidence from rural Bangladesh," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:wodepe:v:38:y:2025:i:c:s2452292925000281
    DOI: 10.1016/j.wdp.2025.100683
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2452292925000281
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.wdp.2025.100683?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I26 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Returns to Education
    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:wodepe:v:38:y:2025:i:c:s2452292925000281. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/world-development-perspectives .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.