Why Indian girls take less interest in politics than boys? A research explains
The big idea: Girls in India report being less interested and engaged in politics than boys and cite fewer opportunities to participate in politics, we found in a recent survey of youth across India.
Further, although political interest and engagement was higher for older boys (ages 18-22) than younger boys (ages 14-17), girls’ political interest and engagement stagnated across age groups.
I study young people’s political development, and in the fall of 2022 I collaborated on a study with Indian nonprofit Kuviraa. I am on the advisory board at Kuviraa, which aims to increase girls’ engagement in politics.
We used an Instagram ad to survey over 600 youth ages 14-22 who lived in nearly 30 cities across India.
We found that just over half (51%) of boys considered themselves politically engaged compared with less than a third (29%) of girls. We also measured the survey participants’ level of political engagement based on five behaviors, including sharing political posts online, attending rallies and contacting government officials.
We found that boys and girls age 17 and under had similar levels of political engagement. However, boys’ engagement became much higher than girls once they were 18 and older.
Further, boys had lower awareness than girls of the structural barriers women face in Indian politics.
For example, 74% of the girls surveyed agreed that “it is more difficult in our society for women to become elected officials” compared with 54% of the boys. We found that girls’ awareness was higher with age, whereas boys followed the opposite trajectory, with lower awareness in the older age group.
We also explored possible predictors of youths’ political engagement such as public speaking skills or having a sense
