What Type of Resources? Household Effects and Female Electoral Participation

This paper investigates the relationship between socioeconomic resources and women's political participation, more precisely whether the distinction between individual and household resources helps to identify different mechanisms behind a possible resource effect. Based on a Bayesian multilevel analysis using the Swiss Election Study 2011, we show that both individual and household resources matter for explaining female electoral participation. However, resource effects must not necessarily be positive: While higher education of women and their partners tend to increase female participation, a demanding job of either the woman and/or her partner rather decreases her propensity to vote. Moreover, the mechanisms behind partner effects are contingent on women's individual resource endowment. While low and medium educated women most strongly profit from higher educational partner resources, i.e. from a compensatory mechanism, the resource time seems to particularly confine political involvement of women with both high professional status or no employment.