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Nag Him, Nag Her: Is Voter Mobilization within Households Gendered?

Wed, September 9, 2:00 to 3:30pm MDT (2:00 to 3:30pm MDT), TBA

Abstract

Field experimental studies have shown that voter mobilization messages spillover within households, increasing not only the voter turnout of the household member targeted by the campaign, but also that of secondary household members. In this paper, we ask if such within-household, indirect, mobilization differs depending on whether a woman or a man was initially targeted. Observational studies suggest that wives are more likely to be influenced by their husbands in their voting decision than vice versa. At the same time, it has been shown that women are more likely to list family members as political discussion partners than men, suggesting that women might be more likely to relay a mobilization message to their household members. Observational studies likely suffer from the accuracy and social desirability biases that result from relying on self-reported (discussion) networks and are limited in their identification of causal effects.

We combine data from three previously conducted voter mobilization experiments in the US and the UK that are uniquely suited to causally identify the extent to which direct mobilization efforts that target one randomly sampled household member, indirectly mobilize other members of the household to vote. We assess the extent to which within-household spillovers vary according to the gender of the experimental subject, and that of their household members. We find no difference in the effectiveness of direct mobilization efforts on the propensity to vote between women and men, but a large and statistically significant difference in indirect mobilization in the US context: it is men who are more likely to be indirectly mobilized in two-voter households than women.

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