Gender differences in donating to political parties – Evidence from reporting data

Abstract Parties in all European countries at least partially rely on private donations to finance their activities, but gender gaps in donations remain underexplored. Investigating gaps in donation frequencies and amounts, as well as which parties are likely to receive donations from women, is crucial, as parties represent the interests of donors more than the interests of non-donors, opening an avenue of potential underrepresentation of women’s interests. This study addresses this gap, leveraging data from party finance reports from Italy, the UK, and Finland over time to investigate gender gaps in donation amounts, frequencies, and recipient parties. The results highlight that while gender gaps in donation frequency exist, these differences in how often women and men donate to parties do not directly translate into how much money they donate. Rather, there is large variation in donation amounts over time and across countries. Particularly in Finland, a highly gender-equal country, differences in donation amounts are marginal. Finally, the expectation that green and left parties are most likely to receive donations from women does not hold across all cases – while in all three countries green parties are most likely to receive donations from women, right-wing parties are not the least likely to receive donations from women in Finland and Italy.