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Why Do Women Vote for Ma? The Gender Gap in the 2008 Presidential Election

Wang-Ying Yang and Pei-Ting Lin
2010 / 05
Volume 17, No.1

pp.91-128
10.6612/tjes.2010.17.01.91-128
Paper

Abstract

Since the direct presidential election was held in Taiwan 12 years ago, for the first time a significant voting gender gap appeared in the 2008 presidential election. Women voters supported candidate Ma which boosted him winning the president election. This study attempts to explore why there was such a substantial gender gap in that election. To explain the gender gap, we first compared the factors in explaining voting decision-candidate evaluation, issue positions, socioeconomic factors, and party identification, to see if gender gap exists in these factors. Furthermore, we applied the logit models to examine whether gender differences in these factors lead to voting gender gap. The models show that although gender gaps were evident on voters' candidate evaluation, party identification, some issue positions and socioeconomic conditions, not all of these differences translated into voting gender gaps. Gender differences in party identification remained the strongest factor in explaining gender difference in voting choices. Comparatively, the voting gender gap caused by party identification is evident in that women were less likely to identify with pan-Green party, and pan-Green women might vote across their party line. We further examine respectively the interaction between voters' party identification and candidate factor, and the interaction between voters' party identification and issue evaluation. The results show that candidate factor is not the underlying factor linking the gender gap in party identification and voting gender gap. But the distance of issue positions between voters and parties/candidates on social welfare and environment might explain why women voters identify differently from men with parties and how these differences transfer into voting gender gaps.

Keywords

gender gap

Ma's effect

party identification

issue position

candidate evaluation