Path-Breakers: How Does Women’s Political Participation Respond to Electoral Success?

Sonia Bhalotra, Irma Clots-Figueras and Lakshmi Iyer

No 14-035, Harvard Business School Working Papers from Harvard Business School

Abstract: We investigate whether the event of a woman being competitively elected as a state legislator encourages the subsequent political participation of women, using a regression discontinuity design on constituency level data from India. We find that female incumbents are more likely than male incumbents to re-contest and that there is a decline in the entry of new women candidates. This decline is most pronounced in states with entrenched gender bias and in male-headed parties, suggesting an intensification of barriers against women in these areas. Similar results for (mostly male) Muslim candidates indicate the presence of institutionalized demand-side barriers rather than gender-specific preferences and constraints.

Keywords: Political participation; women; candidates; gender bias; backlash; minority representation; regression discontinuity; India (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 J71 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 55 pages
Date: 2013-11, Revised 2016-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Working Paper: Path-Breakers: How Does Women's Political Participation Respond to Electoral Success? (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hbs:wpaper:14-035

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