Intersectional Inequalities and the Gender Gap: Women’s Voting Behaviour in Southern Europe

The modern gender gap in voting behaviour is a well-established phenomenon in advanced democracies. Although gender is considered a key factor in electoral choices, it is also well known that other individual factors, such as ethnicity and social class, can play a role in voting choice. Indeed, the literature has shown that those who face greater discrimination (e.g., women, individuals with an ethnic minority identity, or those in a lower socioeconomic class) are more likely to support left-wing parties, perceived as more responsive to demands for social equality and economic redistribution. Yet, only a few studies have analysed what happens to women’s voting behaviour when these characteristics interact. Research in Europe on this topic has grown in recent years, but the evidence remains less systematic than in the US and often relies on country-specific studies in North-Western Europe. This is particularly surprising given that in Southern Europe delays in gender equality, the migration crisis and familistic welfare regimes have reinforced conservative values and social inequalities. Adopting an intersectional lens, this paper uses individual-level data from the European Social Survey (waves 7 to 11) to conduct a longitudinal analysis across five Southern European countries (i.e., Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). The findings show that once considering multiple axes of inequality, the modern gender gap becomes less pronounced, suggesting a more nuanced relationship between support for left-wing parties and women’s votes.