More social, less material, more influenced by family ties: Why young women join political parties

Abstract

Do young women and men join political parties for different reasons? To investigate, we theorize the following: first, women will be more attracted by social incentives and men by material ones, while purposive incentives will be equally appealing to both; second, before signing up, women will have more party-affiliated family ties than men; and third, these ties will moderate the gender gap in incentives. Drawing on YOUMEM survey data from over 3500 youth wing members of the main center-left and center-right parties in Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, and Spain, we find strong support for our argument. Our results show that, already in this early – but crucial – part of the pipeline to power, the incentives for joining parties are gendered: young women are more mobilized by social benefits, and less so by material ones. In addition, they are more likely than men to have party-affiliated family ties, indicating that these resources are particularly valuable to them in overcoming the disadvantages they face when entering politics. Notably, family ties boost women’s purposive motivations more than men’s, but they also reduce women’s material motivations to a greater extent. Our findings indicate that if parties are interested in recruiting more young women, they should emphasize the social rewards of membership in their recruitment campaigns.