Electoral Competition, Voter Bias and Women in Politics

Thomas Le Barbanchon and Julien Sauvagnat

No 13238, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: We quantify the implications of voter bias and electoral competition for politicians' gender composition. Unfavorable voters' attitudes towards women and local gender earnings gap correlate negatively with the share of female candidates in Parliamentary elections. Using within-candidate variation across the different polling stations of an electoral district in a given election year, we find that female candidates obtain fewer votes in municipalities with higher gender earnings gaps. We show theoretically that when voters are biased against women, parties facing gender quotas select male candidates in the most contestable districts. We find empirical support for such a strategic party response to voter gender bias. Simulating our calibrated model confirms that competition significantly hinders the effectiveness of gender quotas.

Keywords: Women in politics; Electoral competition; Gender attitudes; Gender quotas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-eur, nep-gen, nep-lab and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Electoral Competition, Voter Bias, and Women in Politics (2022)
Working Paper: Electoral Competition, Voter Bias, and Women in Politics (2022)
Working Paper: Electoral Competition, Voter Bias, and Women in Politics (2022)
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