The Institute of Public Opinion and Research (IPOR) was contracted by Aarhus University from Denmark to conduct a study on Demand and Supply for Women in Politics in Africa. The study aimed at understanding the drivers of political choices in Malawi. Specifically, to determine how Malawian voters think about men and women as political candidates and representatives and also how Malawian voters think about the prospects of political careers. The study makes several significant contributions to the understanding of women’s political representation in Africa. Besides providing novel evidence from Malawi, there are important implications of this research. If, for example, the study results find that voters do evaluate the same strategy differently depending on the candidate’s gender, this suggests new avenues for women’s political campaigning across the globe. And if matrilineal areas generate more women in politics, these are places that could be looked into to find inspiration as to how to ensure that politics does not become a hostile environment to women. Similar studies were planned to be conducted in Zambia, Ghana and Zimbabwe.

IPOR was tasked with conducting data collection for this study. In pursuit of this assignment, IPOR recruited and trained 32 research assistants to collect data using SurveyCTO. The data collection teams comprised of Tumbuka, Sena and Chichewa language speakers who were allocated in different districts according to their language proficiency. The study aimed to reach voters from both matrilineal and patrilineal areas, with plan of interviewing more women than men (a ratio of 2:1) across the districts that were sampled. A total of 2,414 voters from Dedza, karonga, Mulanje and Nsanje districts were interviewed during the data collection, covering a total of 20 constituencies with five constituencies in each district. The sampled districts represented matrilineal areas (Dedza and Mulanje) and Patrilineal areas (Nsanje and karonga). Data collection took over 18 days between May and June 2024.