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Does the Election of a Female Leader Clear the Way for More Women in Politics?

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  • Thushyanthan Baskaran
  • Zohal Hessami
Abstract
Women remain underrepresented in politics and it remains unclear how this might change. In this paper, we investigate whether female council candidates receive more preferential votes when a female mayor has been recently elected into office. We hand collect data for 109,017 candidates in four open-list local council elections (2001-2016) in all 426 municipalities of a German state. Based on RDD estimations for close mixed-gender races, we show that female council candidates advance more from their initial list rank when the mayor is female. This effect spreads to neighboring municipalities and leads to a rising share of female council members.

Suggested Citation

  • Thushyanthan Baskaran & Zohal Hessami, 2018. "Does the Election of a Female Leader Clear the Way for More Women in Politics?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 95-121, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:10:y:2018:i:3:p:95-121
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20170045
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing

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    1. Does the Election of a Female Leader Clear the Way for More Women in Politics? (American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2018) in ReplicationWiki

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