Perception of female politicians by the young generation in Kazakhstan

Abstract

This research analyzes the perceptions of female politicians by the young generation in Kazakhstan. The study is based on several findings of the Western scholars and previous studies conducted during the recent years. Kazakhstan is ranked 60th in the Global Gender Gap Index (2018), which is higher than Ukraine, Greece and Czech Republic. At the same time, women hold 27% of the seats in the Parliament of Kazakhstan, but the attitudes of the Kazakhstani electorate toward the female politicians had not been studied properly since 1998. The Nazarbayev generation grew up under the rule of the authoritarian leader Nursultan Nazarbayev and have never witnessed fair elections in the country. The Nazarbayev generation was born after Nursultan Nazarbayev took power in Kazakhstan; the age of the representatives varies between 18-29 years. This study aims to answer the following research questions: 1) How politicians’ gender and voters’ gender stereotypes interact to shape the outcomes of leadership choice? 2) Do voters with different language preferences evaluate female politicians differently? A survey was conducted among the students of two universities – Nazarbayev University (Nur-Sultan) and the IT-university (Almaty). The findings demonstrate that during the last 20 years the perception of the female politicians by the young generation in Kazakhstan improved significantly, although the gender stereotypes about “feminine” and “masculine” policy domains still exist. At the same time, the results of multivariate regression analysis demonstrate that people with stronger gender stereotypes evaluate male politicians more positively than female politicians, whereas people with weaker gender stereotypes evaluate the female candidates more positively. At the same time, Kazakh-speaking respondents evaluated the female politicians more positively than Russian-speakers. This study provides valuable information for further research on ethnic and gender stereotypes, and political attitudes of the Nazarbayev generation.