Household Voting and the 2016 Brexit Referendum: Can household voting effects explain the lack of a gender gap in vote choice?

The result of the UK's 2016 Referendum on EU Membership is widely considered to be one of a series of recent electoral events (including the election of Donald Trump as President in the USA and the success of far-right parties in Europe) at least partially motivated by populism of a far-right or authoritarian persuasion. Yet Brexit is a strange case compared to these other events, as there is no evidence of a gender gap in vote choice at the referendum, whereas women exhibited lower support for Trump and for the far-right in general. One possible reason why this may be the case is the influence of household effects. This paper investigates how those living together influenced one another's vote choices at the referendum using data from the British Election Study and Understanding Society in order to understand if this can help explain the lack of a gender gap in vote choice. I show how men and women's influence on one another through political discussion is an important, but understudied, factor in deciding their vote choices.