Approximately ten million fewer women voted in the Pakistan general election held in February, compared with the previous election in 2018. Despite an increase in the number of registered women that exceeded the increase in men’s registration, women’s turnout lagged by men’s turnout by 9 percentage points.
As women’s turnout in the UK and other countries regularly exceeds men’s, women’s participation in elections is often thought of as an `outdated’ issue as focus turns to women’s underrepresentation in legislatures. And yet, millions of women across the globe, most commonly in Sub-Saharan Africa, continue to face severe cultural and structural obstacles to voting – compromising the chance that their preferences will be represented.
The persistent undermobilization of women in Pakistan is a reminder that the gender turnout gap is hardly `a thing of a past’. Despite the proliferation of women’s suffrage rights in the last century, we have hardly achieved the vision of most suffragists – equal electoral participation of women that produces better, more representative policies.
Women continue to face de facto barriers to voting
The persistent undermobilization of women in Pakistan undoubtedly reflects widespread gender disparities in the economy and society at large. The world economic forum ranks Pakistan 142nd out of 146 countries in the global gender gap index on four socio-economic dimensions (economic participation, education, health, and political empowerment) – that is ahead of only Iran, Algeria, Chad and Afghanistan.
Women’s literacy rate is markedly lower than men’s, whilst 2 million more girls are out of school than boys (see full report). Women account for a quarter of formal labour force and constitute an overwhelming majority of informal workers that lack access to a robust social protection. Accordingly, only 7% of women had a bank account in 2020. These statistics reflect women’s disproportionate share of responsibilities for the home and the family - with men acting as`political agents’ of entire households and gate-keepers of women’s votes.
Besides structural challenges, patriarchal mindset poses cultural obstacles to women’s voting. With over a third of women reporting spousal violence, UN women Pakistan lists violence, harassment and restricted personal autonomy as a factor that keeps women away from the polls. Outright informal bans on women’s voting were historically not uncommon, although the 2024 election did not see any constituency results pronounced `void’ for women’s turnout lower than the 10% (of total votes cast) threshold.
Party mobilization of women is limited, but promises a new avenue for change
Facing de facto structural and cultural obstacles to voting not only hinders women’s turnout, but also disincentivizes parties from mobilizing women voters. As long as parties get caught up in the belief that women face too many obstacles to vote and do not have agency independent of their husbands, they will perceive women as too `costly’ to mobilize. With limited budgets, parties will taget high-participating voters who are most likely to reward campaigning efforts. Indeed, women are less likely to be contacted by politicians than men, which in turn further lowers women’s motivation to vote overall.
The question is whether political competition can incentivize parties to mobilize more women more – whether independently of their husbands, or encouraging husbands to stop `gate-keeping’ women’s votes. The `New Suffrage Literature’, which uncovers how were newly enfranchised women at the turn of the 20th century incorporated into the electoral process, suggests that women’s turnout can approach the levels of men’s if district political competition is fierce. Whilst parties have the incentive to mobilize men voters who are most likely to vote, they may reach out to women in districts where they have a good chance to win, still need more votes, and the most high-participating men are already mobilized.
In the 2024 election, the gender turnout gap – percentage point difference between women’s and men’s turnout – was indeed widest in two regions of Khyper Pakhtunkhwa province that also had the least competitive districts on average. The gender turnout gap was over 19 percentage points in KPK North and Peshawar Valley, that is in two most uncompetitive regions with an average lead of a winner over runner-up above 30 percentage points. Of course, without further analysis, we cannot be certain that these patterns are caused by party (under)mobilization of women, but they suggest that lack of political competition may play an important role in bringing more women to the polls.
In fact, electoral competition and opportunities for party mobilization in general were severely obstructed in the 2024 elections. The election campaign lacked traditional fanfare owing not only to an unusually severe winter, but also uncertainty of the election timeline, late delimitation of constituencies and late allocation of tickets in some provinces that allowed little time for the production of campaign material and getting to know their constituencies. PTI candidates complained that their rallies were obstructed, whilst the party was not allowed to use a single symbol to ease identification of its candidates on the ballots.
Although further research must examine the observed associations between political competition and women’s turnout in Pakistan, the descriptive patterns open a new avenue for change: strengthening democratic competition in Pakistan may benefit all, but especially the most vulnerable, undermobilized women voters.