Aboriginal Gender Gap Analysis

Overall Summary “Locating The Aboriginal Gender Gap: The Political Attitudes and Participation of Aboriginal Women in Canada” by Allison Harrell and Dimitrios Panagos is an article in search of locating gender gaps among Aboriginals with regards to their political participation and attitudes. If discovered that there is a gender gap present, this article looks to find where it would be located and what would cause such gaps. With the help of previous literature, they look at two possible explanations. Inequality could be one possible determinant of gender gaps and colonialism could be another. Harell and Dimitrios look at both possible explanations as well as three surveys, and with the assistance of these they come to discover that there

The gender gaps among Aboriginals are present and more prominent when it comes to their support of particular political parties and colonialism seems to better explain such gaps. During their research they not only discover gender gaps among Aboriginal men and women but that there is a strikingly significant gap among Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals when it came to political behaviour.

Background “Today the concept of gender gaps has become a staple in the literature and is important for understanding the political behaviour of women and men” (Harell, Panagos, 2010). In the past there has not been any other research that indicate gender gaps among Aboriginals or what they would look like if they did. There has been previous research however, that makes this issue more complicated. There is the “inequality hypothesis” (Harell, Panagos, 2013) that could explain why gender gaps would exist among Aboriginal women. Women still earn less in the paid labour force than men (Statistics Canada 2006, 133), they are over represented in precarious work (Statistics Canada, 2006, 109-133), and they are at greater risk of

While they state that the “inequality hypothesis” does indeed have some implications on the political behaviour of Aboriginal Women, “the magnitude and character of the Aboriginal gender gap in vote choice provides clear support for the colonialism hypothesis” (Harell, Panagos 2013). With previous literature along with the three Canadian surveys, the 2004 CES, the ESN, and the ECS_A, they further unveil evidence that coincides with their claim. Just as previous research had suggested they find that participation rates among Aboriginal men and women are similar to those of non-Aboriginals. However, they do uncover that Aboriginals turnout rates were only half the amount of the non-Aboriginal people. (see also Harell, Panagos, Matthews 2011). Furthermore, it was apparent that Aboriginals supported and lacked support for opposite groups of the general population. The support for the NDP party was where the gender gap among Aboriginals was the most vivid. Aboriginal women were more likely to vote NDP, whereas Aboriginal men were more likely to vote Liberal. The colonialism view on this finding is that the NDP party has been supportive of the rights of Aboriginals since the 1960’s. (Tester, McNicoll, and Forsyth 1999). After more extensive research and examination of the ESC 2004, Harell and Panagos find that nothing from the