Multi-party preferential voting systems enable voters to make a choice between men and women when selecting a candidate. The present paper inquires about the role of stereotypes in same-gender voting, i.e. choosing a candidate of one’s own gender. In Finland, same-gender voting has typically been more common among men than women. This is strongly related to supply-side factors such as district magnitude and proportion of male candidates and MPs (Giger et al. 2011). Whereas descriptive and substantive representation are important motivations for same-gender voting among women, men's strong tendency for same-gender voting remain largely unexplained (Holli & Wass 2010). Based on unique data collected by Finnish national election study (2011) and a survey conducted during the Finnish presidential election (2012), we examine whether, and to what extent gender differences in same-gender preferences are related to stereotypes (e.g. Dolan 2010; Sanbonmatsu 2002). We investigate gender stereotypes alongside with motivations related to descriptive and substantive representation and contextual factors. As all of these factors are supposedly inter-related, we use structural equation modeling to form a more comprehensive picture of their combined effect on gender-based voting.
