Changing Patterns of Women’s Turnout in Indian Elections
| Author | Pranav Gupta,Sanjay Kumar |
| DOI | 10.1177/2321023015575210 |
| Date | 01 June 2015 |
| Published date | 01 June 2015 |
| Subject Matter | India’s 2014 Elections |
India’s 2014 Elections
Changing Patterns of Women’s
Turnout in Indian Elections
Sanjay Kumar1
Pranav Gupta2
Abstract
This article traces the changing patterns of women’s turnout in state assembly and Lok Sabha elections
in India. The primary objective of the article is to understand why more women are turning out to vote.
The article discusses the self-empowerment hypothesis, increased female literacy and deeper penetra-
tion of media as possible factors behind this recent upsurge. It also studies how greater interest in
politics and relatively higher participation in campaign activities by women in recent elections are pos-
sibly related to the increased turnout. The analysis presented in the article is based on a combination
of both aggregate data and survey data. The article uses empirical evidence from the National Election
Studies conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies for the 2004, 2009 and the 2014
General Elections and the Census of India 2001 and 2011.
Keywords
India, elections, turnout, women in politics, political participation, gender gap, media exposure, self-
empowerment, female literacy, women turnout
It is widely believed that orthodox social norms in India have limited the role of women in mainstream
electoral politics, restrained them from emerging as independent voters and reduced the importance of
gender issues in the policy discourse. In this context, the significant rise in women’s turnout in recent
state assembly elections and the recently concluded Lok Sabha election have raised a question whether
traditional barriers are eroding as an increasing number of women voters are now turning out to vote and
exercising their democratic rights. Even though India has consistently witnessed a higher overall turnout
than most advanced democracies, the gender gap in turnout continues to remain relatively higher. Though
India continues to fare poorly on gender parity as reflected in its 114th rank in the latest Global Gender
Parity Report of the World Economic Forum,3 major changes seem to be occurring in the political arena.
1 Professor and Director, CSDS.
2 Researcher with Lokniti, a research programme of CSDS.
3 The Global Gender Parity Report (World Economic Forum, 2014) provides an overall rank to countries based on a composite
index with variables on gender differences in various arenas.
Studies in Indian Politics
3(1) 7–18
© 2015 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2321023015575210
http://inp.sagepub.com
Corresponding author:
Sanjay Kumar, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, 29, Rajpur Road, New Delhi 110 054, India.
Email: sanjay@csds.in
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