Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena

Stefano Gagliarducci and M. Daniele Paserman

No 4128, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper studies gender interactions within hierarchical organizations using a large data set on the duration of Italian municipal governments elected between 1993 and 2003. A municipal government can be viewed as a hierarchy, whose stability over time depends on the degree of cooperation between and within ranks. We find that in municipalities headed by female mayors, the probability of early termination of the legislature is higher. This result persists and becomes stronger when we control for municipality fixed effects as well as non-random sorting of women into municipalities using regression discontinuity in gender-mixed electoral races decided by a narrow margin. The likelihood that a female mayor survives until the end of her term is lowest when the council is entirely male, and in regions with less favorable attitudes towards working women. The evidence is suggestive that female mayors are less able at fostering cooperation among men, or alternatively, that men are more reluctant to be headed by women. Other interpretations receive less support in the data. Our results may provide an alternative explanation for the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions.

Keywords: government stability; discrimination; gender; cooperativeness; hierarchies; mayors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D74 H72 J16 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54 pages
Date: 2009-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-lab and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published - published in: Review of Economic Studies, 2012, 79 (3), 1021-1052

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp4128.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena (2012)
Working Paper: Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena (2011)
Working Paper: Gender Interactions Within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena (2009)
Working Paper: Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp4128

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().