Women voters show their index fingers marked with an indelible ink after casting their vote in India’s national election in Prayagraj, India, May 25, 2024
| Photo Credit: Rajesh Kumar Singh
The Election Commission (EC) has released granular data for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections recently. The gap between male and female turnouts was narrowing in recent elections, before female electors’ turnout surpassed that of men in the 2019 and now, the 2024 elections. The difference between the turnout increased from 0.16 to 0.23 points from the 2019 to the 2024 elections.
Chart 1 shows the difference between male and female voter turnouts across Lok Sabha polls in percentage points
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In 15 out of the 28 major States and U.T.s, female turnout surpassed that of men, while in the rest, it was the opposite. The gender difference in turnout was highest in Bihar, even as the overall turnout was relatively low. Bihar apart, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand also experienced higher female turnout relative to males.
Chart 2 shows the male and female voter turnout in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in percentage.
Among States with high turnout, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Manipur, and West Bengal had higher female turnout compared to males. In States with moderate turnout, Odisha, Kerala, and Himachal Pradesh had a similar gender divide in turnout.
The situation was the opposite in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jammu & Kashmir, and Rajasthan, where overall turnout was lower relative to the rest of the country, and male turnout surpassed that of females. In States with moderate turnout, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, and Karnataka had higher turnout among men. In others, the gender difference in turnout was not that high.
Looking at turnouts alone would paint an incomplete picture. We need to see female turnout relative to the electorate. If a State has a skewed electorate with higher composition of men, a relatively higher turnout among women could still mean that men turned out more because of the latter’s higher electorate numbers.
Chart 3 plots the ratio of female to male electors (eligible voters) against the ratio of female to male voters (absolute numbers of those who turned out).
Bihar stands out among States that had a higher female-to-male (voters) ratio despite having a lower female-to-male electorate ratio. This means that in Bihar, more women turned out to vote than men in absolute numbers even though there were more registered male electors than women. Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh also come under this category but the difference between these ratios is less stark compared to Bihar.
In States like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh, more women were eligible to vote compared to men and more women turned out to vote as well.
The situation was the opposite in States like Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh among others where female voters were outnumbered by male voters as there were more registered male electors than women.
What could explain the drastic difference in female and male voting in States like Bihar and Jharkhand? The reasons could be political factors (which motivate more women to vote) or structural factors such as the migration of male workers to other States and their inability to return to their home States to vote despite being registered as voters there.
Table 4 looks at the top 10 common sources and destinations of migrant workers who used unreserved tickets to travel to other States in 2023.
Note how Bihar features in four entries among the top 10 sources and the fact that there are two States/U.T. destinations for Bihar’s migrants which are not neighbouring States/U.T.s.
Out-migration seems a possible reason for lower male turnout in States like Bihar. Establishing this fact might require more granular data processing beyond the scope of this article.
Table 5 shows the five seats in which the difference between the male and female turnout was the most, and the five seats in which the difference between the male and female turnout was the least