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BJP) Than Men Gender Gap and Gender Differences in National Party Choices in Indian General Election, 2014 by Srijani Datta M.A., Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2011 B.A., St. Xavier’s College Autonomous, Calcutta, 2009 Project Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Political Science Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences © Srijani Datta 2019 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Fall 2019 Copyright in this work rests with the author. Please ensure that any reproduction or re-use is done in accordance with the relevant national copyright legislation. Approval Name: Srijani Datta Degree: Master of Arts (Political Science) Title: Gender Gap and Gender Differences in National Party Choices in Indian General Election, 2014 Examining Committee: Chair: Eline de Rooij Associate Professor Eline de Rooij Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Steven Weldon Supervisor Associate Professor Laurel Weldon External Examiner Professor Date Defended/Approved: Dec 03, 2019 ii Abstract Traditionally, Indian women have been more likely to vote for the Indian National Congress (INC) compared to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) than men. In this paper, I draw from the Developmental Theory of Modern Gender Gap on party choices to formulate hypotheses about the socio-demographic factors and gender differences in attitudes that could have led to the gender gap in party choices in the 2014 election. I test these hypotheses by conducting statistical analysis of data from Wave 6 of the World Value Survey. My research shows that contrary to the modern gender gap theory, the gender advantage of India’s centre-left party comes from states with low levels of human development in comparison to more developed states. I also find that the Developmental theory cannot explain this gender gap as Indian women are still overwhelmingly represented in categories that lead to the traditional gender gap. Keywords: Gender Advantage, The Modern Gender Gap, Indian Politics, Vote, INC, BJP iii Table of Contents Approval .......................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................... v List of Figures................................................................................................................. vi List of Acronyms ............................................................................................................ vii Chapter 1. Introduction .............................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2. Parties in Focus: The Indian National Congress (INC) and The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) .............................................................................. 3 2.1. Indian parties, women candidates and voters ........................................................ 4 Chapter 3. The Modern Gender Gap and Recent Findings ...................................... 7 3.1. Sources of the Modern Gender Gap ...................................................................... 9 3.2. Attitudes and values leading to the modern gender gap ...................................... 12 Chapter 4. Data and Methodology ........................................................................... 17 4.1. Dependent Variable ............................................................................................. 18 4.2. Independent Variables ......................................................................................... 19 4.3. Existence of a Gender Gap ................................................................................. 19 4.4. Sociodemographic Factors and Attitudes for Low HDI States .............................. 22 4.5. Methods .............................................................................................................. 25 4.6. Bivariate Analyses of Gender and Key Independent Variables ............................ 25 4.7. Gender and Party Preference in the Low HDI states ........................................... 28 Chapter 5. Discussion and Conclusion .................................................................. 35 References ................................................................................................................... 39 Appendix A. Brief Note on Indian Women’s Movement ...................................... 45 Appendix B. Table B: Independent Variables ...................................................... 47 Appendix C. Bivariate Analysis of Gender and Key Independent Variables ..... 51 Appendix D. Regression Results and Interaction Effect Outcomes on Party Preference in High and Low HDI states ........................................................... 55 iv List of Tables Table 4.3.1. Binomial Logistic Regression of Gender on Party Preference at all-India level with fixed effects for States ............................................................ 20 Table 4.4.1. Descriptive statistics for Binary and Continuous Variables ..................... 23 Table 4.4.2. Categorical Variables with the total number and percentage of total respondents in each category (N=949)................................................... 24 Table 4.6.1. Bivariate Analyses Results (Chi-square Tests) ....................................... 26 Table 4.6.2. T-test results of binary and continuous variables by Gender .................. 27 Table 4.7.1. Binomial Logistic Regression of Gender on Party Preference in Low HDI level States with fixed effects for States (Model 1) ................................. 28 Table 4.7.2. Logistic Regression models of party preference for the INC in Low HDI States ..................................................................................................... 31 v List of Figures Figure 3.1.1. Relationship between factors influencing the modern gender gap leading to party choice ........................................................................................ 12 Figure 4.3.2. Predicted probabilities of respondents preferring the INC by Gender and Region ................................................................................................... 21 Figure 4.7.3. Marginal effects of Gender and Marital Status on Party Preference ....... 32 Figure 4.7.4. Marginal Effects between Gender and Ideology ..................................... 33 vi List of Acronyms BJP Bharatiya Janata Party HDI Human Development Index INC Indian National Congress NDA National Democratic Alliance OBC Other Backward Castes SC Scheduled Castes ST Scheduled Tribes UPA United Progressive Alliance vii Chapter 1. Introduction Traditionally, women in India have been more likely to vote for the Indian National Congress (INC) compared to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) than men (Yadav Y. , 2003), even though neither party campaigns on specific women-centric policies. Yadav (2003) and Deshpande (2009) have recognized this preference, as the INC’s gender advantage. Although, this gender gap1 has been narrowing in the national elections since 2004 (Deshpande, 2009) and in the 2014 Indian General Election the BJP removed the INC as the chief political force of Indian political competition, gaining a clear majority in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) (Vaishnav, 2015), the INC continued to receive the electoral gender advantage. In this paper, I draw from the development theory of Modern Gender Gap on party choices to formulate hypotheses about the socio- demographic factors and gender differences in attitudes that could have led to the gender gap in party choices in the 2014 election. To investigate the topic, I will look into the extent to which there is a significant gender gap in party choices in India, and whether this gender gap is significantly present at an all-India level or stems from particular regions. Next, I ask to what extent this gender gap can be explained by socio-demographic factors, and/or attitudes and values, and examine whether specific socio-demographic factors and attitudes differentially predict party choice for men and women. The Development theory explains the modern gender gap, or women’s de- alignment from right wing parties to the left, as unique to developed democracies in 1 The Gender Gap in voting is commonly defined as the percentage of women who support a given candidate or party minus the percentage of men who support that same candidate or party. For instance, if 55% of all women voted for the INC and 45% of men voted for the INC, the gender gap would be 10 percentage-points. But in my analysis and further discussion, I refer to the gender gap in terms of the probability of women voting for the INC versus the BJP compared to the probability of men voting for the INC versus the BJP. Accordingly, my analyses rely on odds ratios to express the association between gender and party choice. The odds ratio is a commonly used measure in understanding voting preferences, especially in a two-party system. Specifically, the odds ratio of interest is defined as: (Probability of women voting INC/ probability of women voting BJP) / (Probability of men voting INC/ probability of men voting BJP). 1 North America and Western Europe. Inglehart
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