Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Home
  • Home
Hostname: page-component-684bc48f8b-vmws4 Total loading time: 1.059 Render date: 2021-04-12T05:00:52.725Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "shouldUseShareProductTool": true, "shouldUseHypothesis": true, "isUnsiloEnabled": true, "metricsAbstractViews": false, "figures": false, "newCiteModal": false, "newCitedByModal": true }
EnglishFrançais
British Journal of Political Science British Journal of Political Science

Article contents

How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2019

Amanda Lea Robinson [Opens in a new window]  and
Jessica Gottlieb
Amanda Lea Robinson
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Jessica Gottlieb
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University
Corresponding
E-mail address:
robinson.1012@osu.edu
Get access
Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While gender gaps in political participation are pervasive, especially in developing countries, this study provides systematic evidence of one cultural practice that closes this gap. Using data from across Africa, this article shows that matrilineality – tracing kinship through the female line – is robustly associated with closing the gender gap in political participation. It then uses this practice as a lens through which to draw more general inferences. Exploiting quantitative and qualitative data from Malawi, the authors demonstrate that matrilineality's success in improving outcomes for women lies in its ability to sustain more progressive norms about the role of women in society. It sets individual expectations about the gendered beliefs and behaviors of other households in the community, and in a predictable way through the intergenerational transmission of the practice. The study tests and finds evidence against two competing explanations: that matrilineality works through its conferral of material resources alone, or by increasing education for girls.

Keywords

women Malawi kinship cultural norms institutions
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 68 - 92
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below.
If you should have access and can't see this content please contact technical support.

Footnotes

The authors contributed equally, and the ordering of their names reflects the principle of rotation across a series of articles.

References

Adam, L (1947) Brief communications: virilocal and uxorilocal. American Anthropologist 49 (4), 678.10.1525/aa.1947.49.4.02a00220CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Afrobarometer (2012) Round 5 Survey Data. Available from www.afrobarometer.org (accessed 16 October 2015).Google Scholar
Alesina, AF, Giuliano, P and Nunn, N (2013) On the origins of gender roles: women and the plough. Quarterly Journal of Economics 128, 469–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alsan, M (2015) The effect of the tsetse fly on African development. American Economic Review 105 (1), 382–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, ML (2008) Multiple inference and gender differences in the effects of early intervention: a reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry preschool, and early training projects. Journal of the American Statistical Association 103 (484), 1481–1495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, S and Genicot, G (2014) Suicide and property rights in India. Journal of Development Economics 114, 64–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, TD and Burchard, SM (2013) ‘Engendering’ politics: the impact of descriptive representation on women's political engagement in sub-Saharan Africa. Comparative Political Studies 46 (7), 767–790.Google Scholar
Beaumont, E (2011) Promoting political agency, addressing political inequality: a multilevel model of internal political efficacy. The Journal of Politics 73 (1), 216–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berge, E, Kambewa, D, Munthali, A and Wiig, H (2014) Lineage and land reforms in Malawi: do matrilineal and patrilineal landholding systems represent a problem for land reforms in Malawi? Land Use Policy 41, 61–69.10.1016/j.landusepol.2014.05.003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bleck, J and Michelitch, K (2018) Is women's empowerment associated with political knowledge and opinions? Evidence from Rural Mali. World Development 106, 299–323.10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.01.006CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brulé, R and Gaikwad, N (2017) Culture, capital, and the political economy gender gap: evidence from Meghalaya's Matrilineal Tribes. Available from https://rachelbrule.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/shillongpaper_20170928.pdf (accessed 20 December 2017).Google Scholar
Burns, N, Schlozman, KL and Verba, S (2001) The Private Roots of Public Action: Gender, Equality, and Political Participation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Chwe, MS-Y (2013) Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Clayton, A (2015) Women's political engagement under quota-mandated female representation: evidence from a randomized policy experiment. Comparative Political Studies 48 (3), 333–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clayton, A, Josefsson, C and Wang, V (2014) Present without presence? Gender, quotas, and debate recognition in the Ugandan Parliament. Representation 50 (3), 379–392.10.1080/00344893.2014.951232CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colson, E (1951) The plateau Tonga. In Colson, E and Gluckman, M (eds), Seven Tribes of British Central Africa. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, pp. 94–163.Google Scholar
Davison, J (1997) Gender, Lineage, and Ethnicity in Southern Africa. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Desposato, S and Norrander, B (2009) The gender gap in Latin America: contextual and individual influences on gender and political participation. British Journal of Political Science 39, 141–162.10.1017/S0007123408000458CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duflo, E (2012) Women empowerment and economic development. Journal of Economic Literature 50 (4), 1051–1079.10.1257/jel.50.4.1051CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eggen, Ø (2011) Chiefs and everyday governance: parallel state organisations in Malawi. Journal of Southern African Studies 37 (2), 313–331.Google Scholar
Elden, JM (1981) Political efficacy at work: the connection between more autonomous forms of workplace organization and a more participatory politics. American Political Science Review 75 (1), 43–58.10.2307/1962158CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finkel, SE (1985) Reciprocal effects of participation and political efficacy: a panel analysis. American Journal of Political Science 29 (4), 891–913.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fish, MS (2002) Islam and authoritarianism. World Politics 55 (1), 4–37.Google Scholar
Gneezy, U, Leonard, KL and List, JA (2009) Gender differences in competition: evidence from a matrilineal and a patriarchal society. Econometrica 77 (5), 1637–1664.Google Scholar
Gong, B and C-L Yang, CL (2012) Gender differences in risk attitudes: field experiments on the matrilineal Mosuo and the patriarchal Yi. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 83, 59–65.10.1016/j.jebo.2011.06.010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, RG Jr (ed.) (2005) Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, TX: SIL International. Available from http://www.ethnologue.com/Google Scholar
Gottlieb, J (2016) Why might information exacerbate the gender gap in civic participation? Evidence from Mali. World Development 86, 95–110.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gottlieb, J, Grossman, G and Robinson, AL (2016) Do men and women have different policy preferences in Africa? Determinants and implications of gender gaps in policy prioritization. British Journal of Political Science 48 (3), 611–636.Google Scholar
Gray, JP (1999) A corrected ethnographic Atlas. World Cultures 10 (1), 24–85.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, J, Mummolo, J and Xu, Y (2018) How much should we trust estimates from multiplicative interaction models? Simple tools to improve empirical practice. Political Analysis. doi:10.1017/pan.2018.46.Google Scholar
Holden, CJ and Mace, R (2003) Spread of cattle led to the loss of matrilineal descent in Africa: a coevolutionary analysis. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 270, 2425–2433.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Holden, CJ, Sear, R and Mace, R (2003) Matriliny as daughter-biased investment. Evolution and Human Behavior 24, 99–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, VM, Bowen, DL and Nielsen, PL (2015) Clan governance and state stability: the relationship between female subordination and political order. American Political Science Review 109 (3), 535–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, MM, Paxton, P and Krook, ML (2017) Gender quotas for legislatures and corporate boards. Annual Review of Sociology 43, 331–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ibik, JO (1970) Law of marriage and divorce: Malawi. In Allott, AN (ed.), Restatement of African Law. London, UK: Sweet and Maxwell, pp. 11–23.Google Scholar
Inglehart, R and Norris, P (2003) Rising Tide: Gender Equality and Cultural Change Worldwide. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaksson, A-S, Kotsadam, A and Nerman, M (2014) The gender gap in African political participation: testing theories of individual and contextual determinants. Journal of Development Studies 50 (2), 302–318.10.1080/00220388.2013.833321CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jayachandran, S (2015) The roots of gender inequality in developing countries. Annual Review of Economics 7, 63–88.Google Scholar
Karpowitz, CF, Mendelberg, T and Shaker, L (2012) Gender inequality in deliberative participation. American Political Science Review 106 (3), 533–547.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerr, RB (2005) Food security in Northern Malawi: gender, kinship relations, and entitlements in historical context. Journal of Southern African Studies 31 (1), 53–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kishindo, PJ (2002) ‘Flogging a dead cow?’: The revival of Malawian Chingoni. Nordic Journal of African Studies 11 (2), 206–223.Google Scholar
Kittilson, MC and Schwindt-Bayer, LA (2012) The Gendered Effects of Electoral Institutions: Political Engagement and Participation. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kohler, H-P, Watkins, SC et al. (2015) Cohort profile: the Malawi Longitudinal Study of Families and Health (MLSFH). International Journal of Epidemiology 44 (2), 394–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lagerlöf, N-P (2003) Gender equality and long-run growth. Journal of Economic Growth 8 (4), 403–426.Google Scholar
Logan, C and Bratton, M (2006) The political gender gap in Africa: similar attitudes, different behaviors. Working Paper No. 58. Cape Town: Afrobarometer.Google Scholar
Lowes, S (2018) Matrilineal kinship and spousal cooperation: evidence from the Matrilineal belt. Available from http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/slowes/files/lowes_matrilineal.pdf (accessed 19 November 2018).Google Scholar
Mabsout, R and Van Staveren, I (2010) Disentangling bargaining power from individual and household level to institutions: evidence on women's position in Ethiopia. World Development 38 (5), 783–796.Google Scholar
Mace, R and Holden, CJ (1999) Evolutionary ecology and cross-cultural comparison: the case of matrilineal descent in sub-Saharan Africa. In Lee, P (ed.), Comparative Primate Socioecology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp. 387–405.10.1017/CBO9780511542466.019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackie, G (1996) Ending footbinding and infibulation: a convention account. American Sociological Review 61 (6), 999–1017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maltz, DN and Borker, RA (1982) A cultural approach to male-female miscommunication. In Monaghan, L, Goodman, JE and Robinson, JM (eds), A Cultural Approach to Interpersonal Communication: Essential Readings. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, pp. 168–185.Google Scholar
Munthali, AC (2008) The emergence of female village headwomen in Rumphi and implications for land use and management. Available at http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/bitstream/handle/10535/2176/Munthali_111001.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed 12 March 2016).Google Scholar
Murdock, GP (1959) Africa: Its Peoples and Their Culture History. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Murdock, GP (1967) Ethnographic Atlas. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Norris, P (2009) Petroleum patriarchy? A response to Ross. Politics & Gender 5 (4), 553–560.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ntara, SJ (1977) The History of the Chewa. Wiesbaden, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag.Google Scholar
Nunn, N and Wantchekon, L (2011) The slave trade and the origins of mistrust in Africa. American Economic Review 101 (7), 3221–3252.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peters, PE (1997) Against the odds: matriliny, land, and gender in the Shire Highlands of Malawi. Critique of Anthropology 17 (2), 189–210.Google Scholar
Phiri, KM (1983) Some changes in the matrilineal family system among the Chewa of Malawi. Journal of African History 24 (2), 257–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Phiri, KM and Vaughan, M (1977) Amachinga Yao Traditions. Zomba, Malawi: Chancellor College, University of Malawi.Google Scholar
Richards, A (1950) Some types of family structure amongst the Central Bantu. In Radcliffe-Brown, AR and Daryll Forde, C (eds), African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 207–251.Google Scholar
Robinson, AL and Gottlieb, J (2019) Replication Data for: How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RIKYVD, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:BCGbbZuQ/L + Az98wU30yfQ== [fileUNF]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowley, H (1867) Twenty Years in Central Africa: Being the Story of the Universities' Mission to Central Africa. London, UK: Wells Gardner, Darton, and Company.Google Scholar
Saidi, C (2010) Women's Authority and Society in Early East-Central Africa. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Schatz, E (2002) Numbers and Narratives: Making Sense of Gender and Context in Rural Malawi. PhD Dissertation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Schatz, E (2005) ‘Take your mat and go!’: Rural Malawian women's strategies in the HIV/AIDS era. Culture, Health, and Sexuality 7 (5), 479–492.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schlegel, A (1972) Male Dominance and Female Authority. New Haven, CT: Human Relations Area Files Inc.Google Scholar
Schneider, DM and Gough, K (eds) (1961) Matrilineal Kinship. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tannen, D (1990) You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.Google Scholar
Tripp, AM and Kang, A (2008) The global impact of quotas: on the fast track to increased female legislative representation. Comparative Political Studies 41 (3), 338–361.Google Scholar
US Center for World Mission (2010) Joshua Project. Available from www.joshuaproject.net.Google Scholar
Vaessen, J et al. (2014) The effect of microcredit on women's control over household spending in developing countries: a systematic review. Campbell Systematic Reviews 10 (8), 1–205.Google Scholar
Vaughan, M (1987) The Story of an African Famine: Gender and Famine in Twentieth Century Malawi. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verba, S, Burns, N and Schlozman, KL (1997) Knowing and caring about politics: gender and political engagement. The Journal of Politics 59 (4), 1051–1072.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verba, S and Nie, NH (1972) Participation in America: Political Democracy and Social Equality. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Verba, S, Nie, NH and Kim, JO (1987) Participation and Political Equality: A Seven-Nation Comparison. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Zetterberg, P (2009) Do gender quotas foster women's political engagement? Political Research Quarterly 62, 714–730.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Robinson and Gottlieb Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/RIKYVD
Link

Robinson and Gottlieb supplementary material

Robinson and Gottlieb supplementary material
PDF 823 KB

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Full text views reflects PDF downloads, PDFs sent to Google Drive, Dropbox and Kindle and HTML full text views.

Total number of HTML views: 985
Total number of PDF views: 897 *
View data table for this chart

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between 27th June 2019 - 12th April 2021. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

7
Cited by

Send article to Kindle

To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle.

Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa
Available formats
×

Send article to Dropbox

To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox.

How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa
Available formats
×

Send article to Google Drive

To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your <service> account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive.

How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa
Available formats
×
×

Reply to: Submit a response

Your details

Conflicting interests

Do you have any conflicting interests? *