Women make up 44 per cent of Pakistan’s 105,955,409 registered voters for the 2018 elections. While this reflects a lower proportion than their share in the adult voting age population, more Pakistani women are registered to vote than ever before.
These initiatives were specially targeted at areas and neighbourhoods with particularly low proportions of registered women voters. Consequently, women voters’ registration has increased by an impressive 24 per cent since 2013. Men’s voter registration, meanwhile, has increased by 22 per cent.
In the case of Punjab – where purchasing power came up during the survey more than it did in any other province – 50 per cent of women respondents cited it as the top issue whereas only 37 per cent male respondents from the province cited it the same way.
This change took place across all provinces: there has been a 25 per cent increase in women voters’ registration in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a 27 per cent increase in Balochistan and, a slightly lower, 17 per cent increase in Sindh.
Since a sizable gender gap in voter registration persists, we will need to achieve even higher rates of increase in women voters’ registration in the future to get to a gender-equal electorate.
This represents a marked change from past trends. For instance, men’s voter registration grew by 7.3 per cent between 2008 and 2013 while women’s registration only grew by 5.6 per cent in the same period.
Will registered women vote?
Voter registration is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for participation in voting. Translating registered votes into actual voter turnout at the polls depends upon personal motivation among voters, and the cost of time and travel to get to a polling station. It also requires voters to make up their minds about who to cast a vote for.
In the Herald survey conducted between June 25 and July 12 this year, respondents across Pakistan were asked if they would turn out to vote in the 2018 election. Since voting is a socially desirable behaviour, survey respondents often tend to overstate their past and future participation in voting to appear more engaged with electoral politics than they really are. Given this caveat, as many registered women voters surveyed in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan showed strong intent to vote as registered men voters surveyed in these areas did.