How Gap Measures Determine Results: The Case of Proportional Systems and the Gender Mobilization Gap

• In Event: Gendered Influence on Electoral and Legislative Behavior

Abstract

How scholars conceptualize and measure gender gap in mobilization can have profound consequences for substantive conclusions. Scholars typically operationalize it as a difference between women's and men's turnout (difference-in-proportions measure) or as a fraction of women voters among all voters (proportion measure). Using the case of proportional representation (PR) reform in Norway, I demonstrate that, in a context of low men's turnout, the proportion measure indicates that PR narrows the gap, whilst the difference-in-proportion measure indicates that it widens the gap. This is because mobilizing fewer women than men widens the difference between women's and men's turnout, but may constitute a greater proportional increase in women's mobilization compared to men's when only few men (and even fewer women) vote. These findings bring together seemingly opposing arguments in the PR-gap debate and have wide implications for the study of `gaps' within and beyond gender scholarship.

Author

• Mona Morgan-Collins, King's College London