Court the women’s vote in 2019

A new study finds that women voters, who carry the bulk of the socioeconomic and inequality burden, may put socioeconomic rights above party loyalties in the coming national elections

If we dig beyond our muchlauded high representation of women in Parliament and our constitutionally enshrined right to equality, South Africa’s gender divide is still profound — and this may be a reason women appear to be shifting away from the ANC.

This decline in women’s support for the governing party is one of the findings of a new study by the Centre for Social Development in Africa (CSDA) into what drives voting decisions in South Africa, which was released earlier this month.

This is a first-of-its-kind deep dive into what matters most to the voting populace, and what predictive value can be ascribed to the demographics that divide and unite us, such as gender, race and age.

In previous regional and limited research, the first signs of a new trend in the political landscape started to emerge. This was a selfreported move away from traditional party loyalties and towards prioritising socioeconomic rights. Now, drawing from a 2017 survey and subsequent statistical analyses, new trends on a national scale can be examined. This includes asking to what extent government performance in delivering socioeconomic rights, as well as perceptions of corruption and governance, are likely to influence voter preferences in the 2019 elections.

More than 3390 people, from a random and nationally representative sample, with an equal number of male and female respondents, took part in the study.

In the results, the ruling party remains the dominant choice, with most respondents saying they would probably support the ANC (53%) at the polls next year, followed by the Democratic Alliance (22%) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) (6%). Five percent said they would not vote and 6% would not answer the question. The support for the respective parties is higher if the latter are taken into account.

The ANC still holds the trust of most respondents, and a reputation as the party that ushered in democracy.

Although loyalty to the party that brought “freedom and democracy to the country” is still clearly a factor, it was not statistically significant in the modelling. A critical departure emerged when people were asked to consider which was more important — democratic rights or socioeconomic wellbeing.

The majority (44.6%) said socioeconomic wellbeing was the top concern. Moreover, those who valued socioeconomic rights (and who were concerned about high levels of unemployment, poor income and poor housing delivery) were less likely to vote for the governing party, perhaps because they perceive a weakening in delivery of these rights by the ANC-led government.

And the statistical analysis, using a logistic regression model, revealed, among other things, a clear gender slant. Women respondents report being less likely to vote for the ANC in the next election compared with their male peers.

Put differently, men are 33% times more likely to vote for the ANC than women. This is contrary to earlier findings by market researcher Ipsos in 2016 that more women voted for the ANC (55%) and the DA (53%) in the local government elections than men, whereas fewer women than men voted for the EFF (40%).

How do we make sense of these diverging paths?

When this is contextualised by using additional research, a picture emerges of women burdened by unemployment and the bulk of the caretaking load. The United Nations Global Gender Inequality Index, for example, ranks South Africa 90th out of 148 countries.

According to Statistics South Africa, the rate of unemployment among women in the second quarter of 2018 was 29.5% compared with 25.3% among men, using the official definition of unemployment. If the expanded definition is applied, the gap in the rate of unemployment between women and men widens to 7.5 percentage points.

Additionally, they report that women are more likely than men to be involved in unpaid work, which remains invisible in national economic statistics.

Finally, data from the World Economic Forum, 2017, shows that a South African man earns on average 67% more than a woman — the sixthlargest gender pay gap in Africa.

In the findings of the new study, the influence of social grant receipt on voting preferences provided a rich layer of understanding about the influence of social protection on voting behaviour.

What is important is that, although both recipients and nonrecipients of grants were more likely to vote for the ANC than for an opposition party, there was no statistically significant difference between male grant recipients and nonrecipients in voter choice, but this was not the case for women.

Here, there was a small but statistically significant difference between female grant recipients and nonrecipients in terms of voter choice. Female grant recipients were more likely to vote for the ANC than nonrecipients. Grant recipients who feared losing their grant if they voted for another party were twice as likely to vote for the ANC. Because 98% of child support grant beneficiaries are women, this is a significant finding.

These findings are the first of three waves of research planned until October 2019, and for now one can only surmise what is driving the gender preferences emerging from the findings.

It is an issue that requires further research. But it is clear that “breadand-butter” issues — socioeconomic rights protection and implementation, trust in government institutions, trust in the president of the country, issues of governance and the perception of increased corruption — are becoming priorities for voters.

And women voters appear to be more discerning in how they plan to exercise their votes.

All parties would do well to understand and respond to the coming shift, and that women will be leading the charge in this direction.