An extensive literature demonstrates that party leaders affect voting behavior in parliamentary elections, but there is little research that examines the electoral impact of women´s leadership of political parties. The gender affinity hypothesis suggests that when women run as their party candidate to “presidential” office, women voters are more likely than men to vote for them.  Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems project, we tested gender affinity effects between women voters and female party leaders in sex-mixed legislative elections, that is, elections involving at least one female party candidate to Prime Minister, in both parliamentary and semi-presidential systems.  We analyzed 51 elections held, from 1996 to 2016, in 24 countries. Our results provide evidence that women voters are more likely than men to vote for a party led by a female leader. However, gender affinity effects are conditional on both voters´ ideology and the electoral system.

* This work was supported by the Operational Program: Andalusia ERDF 2014-2020: B-SEJ-508-UGR18