How Can We Close Gender Gaps in Voting?

Pakistan has one of the largest gender gaps in voting in the world. In the 2018 election, the number of women who voted was 11 million less than the number of men who voted. What can we do to close this gender gap? How can we reach a state where women are able to exercise their democratic rights as voters on an equal footing with men? But before we talk about that, why is it even important to close this gender gap?

To unpack these questions, I bring in Sarah Khan who is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University where she does research on gender and politics. We talk today about some research that we did together, along with Ali Cheema and Shandana Mohmand. This research was published in the American Political Science Review.

In this episode, we take you through how we found what works to increase women’s turnout in Pakistan, why our findings are surprising, and may also be deeply problematic! Link to the research we talked about:

• Ali Cheema, Sarah Khan, Asad Liaqat, and Shandana Khan Mohmand (2022) “Canvassing the Gatekeepers: A Field Experiment to Increase Women Voters’ Turnout in Pakistan,” American Political Science Review. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–21.

Sarah's recommendations:

• Pakistan General Election 2018 Polling Station Data
• Rachel Brulé (2020) Women, Power, and Property: The Paradox of Gender Equality Laws in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Anukriti, S., Herrera-Almanza, C., Pathak, P.K. and Karra, M. (2020), Curse of the Mummy-ji: The Influence of Mothers-in-Law on Women in India. Amer. J. Agr. Econ., 102: 1328-1351.