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India Insights

Election Sheroes:

The Rise of the Female Voter

ndia has recently witnessed a remarkable growth ‘gender gap’ in voter turnout: it represents how high
in turnout at elections, from only 58% in the male turnout is compared to female turnout. As
I 2004 Lok Sabha elections to 67% in the 2019 Figure 1 shows, male and female turnout in India
polls, setting a record for voter participation rates. used to move in unison, with female turnout going
In the context of the world’s largest democracy, even through the same ups and downs as male turnout,
a one-percentage-point increase in turnout means just several percentage points lower. But since
that lakhs of additional voters cast a ballot. the 2004 elections, women’s voter participation
Behind this recent surge in voter participation in in India has seen a steep and unprecedented rise,
India is the rise of one group in particular: women. culminating in the closing of the gender turnout gap
Female voter turnout lagged behind male turnout – the gap between the blue and red lines – in 2019.
by a whopping 16.7 percentage points in 1962 – the
first year for which data is available – and still stood Female Voter Turnout
8.4 percentage points lower than male turnout in Yet the rise of female voter turnout is not
2004. uniform across the country. Figure 2 shows male
turnout (blue line) and female turnout (red line) for
Gender Gap most states. Based on how the blue and red lines
However, since then, women’s participation behave, we can categorize states into three groups:
rates have caught up with men’s (see Figure 1). The those that never had much of a gender turnout gap;
blue line represents the male turnout, i.e., men who those that used to have a sizeable gender gap in
actually cast a ballot as a percentage of registered turnout but have recently closed it; and finally those
male voters. The red line, by contrast, shows the states that still witness considerable difference
female turnout, i.e., the percentage of eligible between male and female turnout rates. The first
women voters who voted on election day. The gap group includes Kerala and most of the North-east.
between the blue and the red line is known as the These regions have always recorded high female

Figure 1: Turnout for Indian National Elections

Turnout (in %)

October 2022 | VoICE International | 31