Gender, Intersecting Identities and Political Attitudes in the Pacific Islands Region

The Pacific Islands has the lowest levels of women’s political representation of any world region; as of October 2023, women make up fewer than seven per cent of Pacific parliamentarians. Popular attitudes data has been an important tool for examining the intersection of gender and politics. Yet until recently, the dearth of rigorous and representative popular attitudes data in the Pacific Islands has been a significant barrier to understanding the dynamics of political participation and representation in the region. The Pacific is the only world region not covered by systematic global democracy and values surveys such as the Global Barometer Surveys and World Values Survey. This paper uses data from the Pacific Attitudes Surveys in Samoa (2021) and Vanuatu (2023), the first ever large-scale popular attitudes surveys carried out in the region, to explore perceptions of gender and political leadership and the gendered dynamics of political participation. It finds that the interplay between traditional gender norms and modern gender roles complicates access to political spaces, but at the same time the ‘non-traditional’ nature of formal politics opens potential windows of opportunity for diverse participation. It also illuminates how other identities – including age, education, rural/urban residence, hinterland/coastal affiliation, and access to employment including overseas opportunities – intersect with gender in perceptions and practices of political participation, in ways that are distinct from Global North conceptions of intersectionality. The Pacific Attitudes Surveys provide a basis to explore perceptions of gender and politics in Pacific contexts, while also enriching global debates on popular attitudes through insights from an under-studied region.