Disclosing Inequalities: Gender and Patterns of Political Participation Among the European Youth

Scholarship on gender and political participation has traditionally focused on electoral politics, mostly looking at the differences in voting behaviour between women and men, the levels of representation of women in political institutions and decision-making bodies – the so-called gender gap and pink quotas. Moreover, literature about gender and political participation has seldom explored how the gender dimension intersects with other drivers for political participation outside the electoral and institutional arenas. Drawing on data from a unique panel survey with booster samples for young people across 9 European countries, this paper seeks to examine continuities and discontinuities in patterns of non-electoral participation between young men and women, and particularly the changing drivers of protest involvement. In particular, we analyse the determinants of variation in protest-related activities for young women and men. Overall, we find that being a young woman coming from an urban background, and leaning towards the left side of the political spectrum, will significantly increase the chances to participate in protest-related activities, while no effect is found when considering young men only. With important implications for our understanding of the factors that foster or limit participation in protest events, this paper will shed light on the patterns of political engagement of young men and women with different backgrounds.