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Gender Quotas and Women’s Political Leadership

Author

Listed:
  • O'Brien, Diana C.

    (Indiana University)

  • Rickne, Johanna

    (SOFI, Stockholm University)

Abstract
Though more than 100 countries have adopted gender quotas, the impacts of these reforms on women’s political leadership remain largely unknown. We exploit a quasi-experiment – a zipper quota imposed by the Swedish Social Democratic national party on municipal party groups – to examine quotas’ effect on women’s selection and survival as leaders within their parties. We find that those municipalities where the quota had a larger impact became more likely to appoint female leaders, but not more likely to support the reelection of women to the post. Extending this analysis, we show that the quota increased the number of qualified female candidates without increasing the diversity among women within the group. These results lend support to the notion that quotas may have an acceleration effect on women’s representation in leadership posts and help dispel the myth that quotas trade short-term gains in women’s descriptive representation for long-term exclusion from political power.

Suggested Citation

  • O'Brien, Diana C. & Rickne, Johanna, 2014. "Gender Quotas and Women’s Political Leadership," Working Paper Series 1043, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:iuiwop:1043
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    8. Maria Escobar‐Lemmon & Michelle M. Taylor‐Robinson, 2005. "Women Ministers in Latin American Government: When, Where, and Why?," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(4), pages 829-844, October.
    9. Kathlene, Lyn, 1994. "Power and Influence in State Legislative Policymaking: The Interaction of Gender and Position in Committee Hearing Debates," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(3), pages 560-576, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. van der Windt, Peter & Humphreys, Macartan & Sanchez de la Sierra, Raul, 2018. "Gender quotas in development programming: Null results from a field experiment in Congo," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 326-345.
    2. Bagues, Manuel & Campa, Pamela, 2021. "Can gender quotas in candidate lists empower women? Evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    3. Köppl-Turyna, Monika & Kantorowicz, Jarosław, 2020. "The effect of quotas on female representation in local politics," Research Papers 15, EcoAustria – Institute for Economic Research.
    4. Spaziani, Sara, 2022. "Can gender quotas break the glass ceiling? Evidence from Italian municipal elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    5. Gisselquist, Rachel M., 2020. "How the cases you choose affect the answers you get, revisited," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    6. Thomas Le & Julien Sauvagnat, 2022. "Electoral Competition, Voter Bias, and Women in Politics," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 352-394.
    7. Kantorowicz, Jarosław & Köppl-Turyna, Monika, 2020. "Electoral systems and female representation in politics: Evidence from a regression discontinuity," Working Papers 20, Agenda Austria.
    8. Martín Gonzalez-Eiras & Carlos Sanz, 2018. "Women’s representation in politics: voter bias, party bias, and electoral systems," Working Papers 1834, Banco de España.
    9. Folke, Olle & Rickne, Johanna & Smith, Daniel M., 2018. "Gender and Dynastic Political Recruitment," Working Paper Series 1233, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    10. Hessami, Zohal & da Fonseca, Mariana Lopes, 2020. "Female political representation and substantive effects on policies: A literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Mustalahti, Irmeli & Gutiérrez-Zamora, Violeta & Hyle, Maija & Devkota, Bishnu Prasad & Tokola, Nina, 2020. "Responsibilization in natural resources governance: A romantic doxa?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    12. Lata Gangadharan & Tarun Jain & Pushkar Maitra & Joe Vecci, 2022. "Lab-in-the-field experiments: perspectives from research on gender," The Japanese Economic Review, Springer, vol. 73(1), pages 31-59, January.
    13. Lassébie, Julie, 2020. "Gender quotas and the selection of local politicians: Evidence from French municipal elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    14. Stephan Klasen & Anna Minasyan, 2021. "Affirmative Action and Intersectionality at the Top: Evidence from South Africa," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 3-35, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender quotas; Political leadership; Party leaders; Political careers; Electoral reforms; Women and politics; Subnational politics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G34 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Mergers; Acquisitions; Restructuring; Corporate Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy

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