THE URBAN-RURAL VOTING DIVIDE IN SWEDEN: A Quantitative Analysis

Sammanfattning: This essay seeks to analyze urban-rural differences in voting behavior in Sweden by measuring urban-rural differences in social attitudes around gender and immigration, and urban-rural differences in party choice. Previous studies have found that demographic and economic differences between regions explain a large part of the urban-rural voting gap, but a significant part still remains unexplained. I argue that some part of the remaining voting gap is caused by differences in social attitudes, such as attitudes around gender and immigration. I find that, after controlling for differences in wealth and demographic composition, urban residents tend to hold more socially liberal attitudes, and express greater levels of support for socially liberal parties than rural residents. I conclude that the urbanization level of a person’s area of residence has an effect on their social attitudes and political preferences, and that urban-rural voting differences are thus not simply an effect of economic or demographic differences.