This study is based on completed data sets from Valundersökningar at the University of Gothenburg. The purpose of this study is to investigate what can explain the difference between men's and women's electoral participation and if other factors can be identified in addition to gender to explain this difference. By examining the participation of men and women in two Swedish parliamentary elections, which are the 1988 and 2018 parliamentary elections. To illustrate whether there is a connection between electoral participation and gender and whether gender participation can be explained by other factors such as education, political interest, and party identification. The study is based on comparing two parliamentary elections to examine participation and gender together with the selected factors. Starting from the parliamentary election in 1988, it is the first parliamentary election in which the statistics clearly show higher participation among women than men. In comparison with the 2018 parliamentary election, to gain insight into gender differences in voter participation in both modern and historical times. There are two questions, which this study will answer. The first question is, what does the relationship between voter participation and gender look like during the two Swedish parliamentary elections in 1988 and 2018? The second question is, how can factors such as education level, party identification, and political interest explain the difference in voter participation between men and women? The author uses quantitative analysis methods such as bivariate and multivariate analysis, along with tools such as cross tables, Cramer’s V, and Chisquare tests.
The results show that gender differences in voter participation are minimal during the 2018 parliamentary election, compared to the 1988 parliamentary election. It also shows that factors such as education level, party membership, and political interest can explain the gender difference in voter participation, but not always because it may be other factors.