Political Participation and Socioeconomic Status: Gender Gap in Hungary?

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to clarify the differences between men and women in Hungary regarding their level of political participation and how their socioeconomic status influences these differences. The theoretical framework suggests that the level of political participation as well as the socioeconomic status when only including occupation and income is higher for men than for women. Additionally, it is expected that socioeconomic status will have a positive effect on political participation. Moreover, the expectation is that the effect of education on political participation will be stronger when women already have a high level of occupation and income. The study uses ESS data from round 9 in Hungary with a sample consisting out of 1661 respondents. Using SPSS, several analyses were conducted to test the hypotheses. The results show that the level of political participation is higher for men than for women in Hungary. However, there is no significant effect found regarding the socioeconomic status except for income; this is higher for men than for women. Furthermore, for both women and men, their socioeconomic status improves their level of political participation. But only for women an interaction effect was found.