Breaking the (Political) Glass Ceiling: Examining the Gender Gap in Political Ambition in India

Are Indian women less politically ambitious than Indian men? If so, what factors help explain the gender gap in political ambition? I locate my research within the framework of nascent political ambition or the initial desire to consider political candidacy. Using a nation-wide survey among Indian millennials, conducted by YouGov, Mint (an Indian newspaper), and the Centre for Policy Research (and Indian think-tank) from June 2022, I find that women are less likely to express nascent political ambition than men, controlling for a host of demographic, political, and sociotropic variables. While some theories from previous literature translate to the Indian context (such as expectations about age, employment, political participation), many do not (such as expectations about parenthood and caste). Most surprisingly, correlates positively or negatively associated with political ambition do not differ for men and women. Thus, in this paper I argue that while individual-level factors may provide us with hints for what shapes political ambition among Indians, ignoring structural, institutional, and organizational factors limits our understanding of why a gender gap in ambition may exist.