Openness of political structures and gender gaps in protest behaviour in Africa

Figures & data

Figure 1. The prevalence of protest behaviour from 1999 to 2017 by gender.

Table 1. Summary statistics of variables

Variables	Percent	Variables	Percent
Educational Level		Political Interest
None	19.0	No interest	21.9
Primary	29.0	Not very interested	21.5
Secondary	42.2	Somewhat interested	31.3
University	9.8	Very interested	25.3
Place of residence		Employment Status
Rural	42.1	Unemployed	50.7
Urban	57.9	Employed	49.3
Political discussion		Voluntary organization membership
Never	32.8	Not a member	63.6
Sometimes	47.5	Inactive	13.8
Often	19.7	Active	22.6
Deprivation Index	5.3 (Mean)	4.2 (Std. Dev.)
Age	37.2 (Mean)	14.5 (Std. Dev.)
Protest behaviour		Gender
No	90.3	Male	49.7
Yes	9.7	Female	50.3
Religion
Christianity	59.1
Muslim	29.0
Other religion	11.9
Country-level variables
Years of military	7.1 (Mean)	10.4 (Std. Dev.)	0–47 (Range)
Years of democracy	13.5 (Mean)	8.1 (Std. Dev.)	1–47 (Range)
Proportion of female legislators	21.7 (Mean)	11.1 (Std. Dev.)	2–45 (Range)
Proportion of female ministers	22.0 (Mean)	10.3 (Std. Dev.)	3.3–47.1 (Range)
Log of GNI	7.34 (Mean)	0.9 (Std. Dev.)	5.5–9.2 (Range)
Freedom Index		Presence of constitutional gender quotas
Not Free	55.6	No	46.7
Partly Free	15.5	Yes	53.3
Free	28.9

Table 2. Models showing the ANOVA and cross-over effects of gender and protesting

Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Intercept	−2.25 (0.12)***	−2.22 (0.12)***	−4.37 (0.95)***
Female		−0.42 (0.06)***	−0.28 (0.06)***
Employment status
Unemployed(RC)
Employed			0.04 (0.05)
Educational attainment
None (RC)
Primary			0.33 (0.09)***
Secondary			0.42 (0.11)***
University			0.66 (0.14)***
Place of residence
Rural (RC)
Urban			0.15 (0.08)$
Age			−0.01 (0.003)***
Deprivation Index			0.04 (0.01)***
Political interest
No interest (RC)
Not very interested			−0.01 (0.06)
Somewhat interested			0.18 (0.07)**
Very interested			0.28 (0.08)***
Religion
Christianity (RC)
Muslim			−0.02 (0.07)
Other religion			−0.07 (0.08)
Membership in voluntary organizations
Not a member (RC)
Inactive member			0.56 (0.10)***
Active member			0.70 (0.09)***
Log GNI			0.28 (0.16)*
Corruption Perception Index			0.003 (0.01)
Random Effects (intercept)	0.48 (0.12)	0.48 (0.12)	0.41 (0.10)
Random Effects (Gender)		0.06 (0.03)	0.06 (0.03)
Countries/N	36/52830	36/52830	36/52249

Note: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001* Standard errors are in parentheses.

Table 3. Cross-level effects of political context, gender, and protest behaviour

Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3
Level 1 variable
Female	−0.15 (0.06)*	−0.46 (0.14)**	−0.40 (0.11)***
Level 2 variables
Military	0.02 (0.006)***
Years of democracy		−0.03 (0.02)
Levels of freedom
Not Free (RC)
Partly Free			0.15 (0.36)
Free			−0.09 (0.49)
Cross-level Effects for gender
Gender X Military	−0.009 (0.004)*
Gender X Democracy		0.01 (0.005)*
Gender X Not Free (RC)			(−0.40 (0.11))
Gender X Partly Free			0.16 (0.13)
Gender X Free			0.31 (0.13)*
Random intercept variance	0.31 (0.08)	0.36 (0.09)	0.40 (0.09)
Random effect (Gender)	0.05 (0.02)	0.05 (0.02)	0.05 (0.03)
Intercept	−6.34 (1.06)***	−4.68 (0.74)***	−5.99 (1.36)***
Countries/N	36/52249	34/49986	36/52249
Variables	Model 4	Model 5	Model 6
Level 1 variables
Female	−0.20 (0.10)*	−0.33 (0.18)$	−0.15 (0.07)*
Level 2 variables
Female leg. seats	−0.002 (0.004)
Prop. of female ministers		−0.001 (0.01)
Constitutional gender quota
No (RC)
Yes			0.20 (0.22)
Cross-level Effects for gender
Gender X Female leg.	−0.002 (0.004)
Gender X Female ministers		0.005 (0.01)
Gender X Constitutional gender quota
No			(−0.15 (0.07))
Yes			−0.15 (0.11)
Random intercept variance	0.41 (0.10)	0.41 (0.11)	0.30 (0.08)
Random effect (gender)	0.06 (0.03)	0.06 (0.03)	0.06 (0.03)
Intercept	−5.52 (1.19)***	−5.74 (1.23)***	−4.21(0.77)***
Countries/N	36/52249	36/52249	36/52249

Note: * p<0.05, ** p<0.01, *** p<0.001* Standard errors are in parentheses

*Control variables (i.e., place of residence, employment status, age, education, membership in voluntary associations, discussing politics, religion, deprivation index, political interest, corruption perception index, and Log GNI) were included in the model but not shown in the table.

Table 4. First and second differences of AME of gender, contextual variables, and protest

Variable changes	First difference for females	First difference for males	Second difference
Years under military
0 to 6 years	0.006	0.012***	−0.006**
0 to 12 years	0.011	0.025***	−0.014**
0 to 18 years	0.018	0.040**	−0.022**
0 to 24 years	0.024	0.056**	−0.031**
0 to 29 years	0.030	0.070**	−0.040**
0 to 47 years	0.053	0.130**	−0.076**
Democratic consolidation
1 to 11 years	−0.012	−0.028	0.016
1 to 21 years	−0.022	−0.052	0.030
1 to 31 years	−0.031	−0.072	0.041*
1 to 41 years	−0.040	−0.089	0.049*
1 to 47 years	−0.045	−0.098	0.053*
Freedom Index
Not free to Partially free	0.017	0.008	0.009
Not free to Free	0.012	−0.014	0.026*
Fairly free to Free	−0.005	−0.022	0.017

Table 5. Test of multicollinearityl

Variable	Variance inflation factor (VIF)	1/VIF
Freedom Index	2.75	0.36
Years of military admin.	1.68	0.60
Democratic consolidation	1.74	0.58
Proportion of female legislators	1.66	0.60
Constitutional quota for gender	1.57	0.64
Female ministers	1.64	0.61
Political interest	1.48	0.67
Educational attainment	1.45	0.69
Deprivation Index	1.20	0.84
Religion	1.19	0.84
Urban residence	1.17	0.86
Age	1.12	0.89
Employment status	1.11	0.90
Voluntary group membership	1.09	0.92
Political discussions	1.50	0.67
Gender	1.07	0.93
Corruption Perception Index	3.01	0.33
Log GNI	2.21	0.45
Mean VIF	1.59

Figure 2. Predicted engagement in protest based on gender.

Figure 3. The association between gender and protest behaviour and years under military administration(s) in the context of the freedom index categories.

Figure 4. The association between gender and protest behaviour in the context of the number of years a country has been a democracy.