The Link Between Gender Inequalities in Work and Employment and Gendered Patterns of Political Participation in Europe

Evenly distributed levels of political involvement among the populace are a prerequisite for the functioning of democracy. Nevertheless, research still consistently finds women being less active than men in some forms of participation in most European countries. In the literature, the existence of this gender gap is often attributed to differences in the holding of political resources: time, money and civic skills. Building on Verba et al.’s resource model of political participation, this argument advances gendered patterns of work as an explanation for women’s lower participation. As work (and specifically paid employment) is one of the main determinants of political resources, women’s on average lower (and different) workforce participation is regarded as a main factor in explaining the gender gap. Existing research supports this argument. Not only have resources proved to be a robust predictor of political participation, but more importantly, findings from the US indicate that women have indeed less resources than men, which (partially) accounts for their diverting participation patterns. However, there is an important gap in the research: comprehensive tests of the full model and its application to the gender gap are mainly based on the US context, while there is a lack of systematic cross-country studies. There are, however, good reasons to expect results to be not directly generalisable, as characteristics of the political sphere and the labour market vary widely across countries. So far, it has not been scrutinised whether the link between work-related inequalities and the gendered patterns of political participation holds across different welfare and political systems. This study will fill this gap in the research by re-evaluating the resource model and testing it in a cross-national setting for the European countries. Using large-n data of the European Social Survey from 28 European countries in conjunction with relevant country-level data, this paper assesses in a multilevel model how inequalities in work and employment contribute to gender differences in institutionalised and extra-institutional forms participation in Europe, while also testing the context-dependency of the resource model. Specifically, it will explore the effect of the gendered property of labour, as expressed in vertical and horizontal labour segregation, welfare policies and part-time working cultures, on a gendered distribution of resources. I expect countries with labour market policies that actively challenge existing gender inequalities, for example by reducing the motherhood penalty, to also exhibit a more equal distribution of resources. Moreover, I argue that the link between resources and participation is moderated by characteristics of the political sphere, such as the country’s participation culture and the political culture towards women and politics. Where other, cultural factors impair women’s participation, the effect of resources might be less powerful. By providing new insights into the context-dependency of the relationship between employment and political participation, this paper does not only contribute to the research on an important theoretical model of political participation, but more importantly, it provides crucial evidence on the political implications of gender inequalities in the labour market helping to tackle women’s disadvantaged position in political engagement.