The Stability Effect of Elected Women: Gender or Seniority?

Antonio Acconcia and Carla Ronza ()

CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy

Abstract: By relying on a policy aimed at reducing the gender gap among members of local councils in Italy, we show that a larger share of women causes more government stability. This effect is mainly driven by first-time elected women, who have a lower probability of getting reelected when compared to councillors elected in previous races, too. It holds when controlling for council fixed effect, councillor characteristics and political fragmentation. On average, the stability effect implies two year longer duration of a government that otherwise would be unseated. These findings are more consistent with a story of economic incentives shaping voting behaviour rather than one related to the peculiar behaviour of women in elected offices.

Keywords: Government Stability; Female Councillors; Political Seniority; Reelection Probability. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H11 J16 K16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-05-11, Revised 2023-02-15
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-gen
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.csef.it/WP/wp611.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:sef:csefwp:611

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CSEF Working Papers from Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Dr. Maria Carannante ().