Geography of the Gender Gap: Brexit, Income, and Scale

Abstract

Brexit was one of many recent votes that stunned pollsters and voters alike, in part because traditional methods of polling had failed. This failure creates a need for new approaches to predicting electoral behavior. This thesis will explore the electoral behavior of women using statistical and spatial analysis as methods. Using the gender gap in income as an indicator, I hypothesize that (1) there is an inverse association between the gender income gap and the vote to remain in the European Union and (2) this association varies at different geographic scales of analysis. As women become economically independent, they vote independently from their partners, and, in this case, vote in favor of staying within the European Union. This is due to women favoring the economic stability of remaining in the European Union. My findings show some support for the first hypothesis, and there is ample evidence that the association does change according to different geographic scales.