Winnipeg Free Press - The Democracy Project: It's more out of duty than passion for politics

Research shows that women vote more than men - a relatively new trend that started in the 1970s. In the decades before the modern feminist movement took hold, turnout among women was about three or four percentage points lower than men. Today, the reverse is true. Turnout among women is three or four points higher and holding. That's the good news. But dig a little deeper, as political scientists are starting to do, and there are some ominous trends, which one study termed "women's flagging political engagement."

If women vote out of a sense of duty, men vote out of an abiding interest in politics, said McGill University political scientist Melanee Thomas, who is doing her PhD on women voters. According to her analysis of survey, polling and voting data, women tend to be less interested in politics, less knowledgeable about government and feel less effective in the political sphere. A dramatic rise in income and education levels among women, especially over the last two or three decades, was supposed to cure that. It hasn't.