Women in Politics

  • How does women’s representation vary cross-nationally and over time?

  • Why is women’s representation important?

Seats Held by Women

  • Rwanda (61.3%)
  • New Zealand (48.3%)
  • Mexico (48.2%)
  • Nicaragua (47.3%)
  • Sweden (46%)
  • Denmark (39.7%)
  • Italy (35.7%)
  • Canada (29.6%)
  • United States (27.2%)
  • Japan (9.9%)

Based on data from iup.org

Regional Averages

  • Americas (32%)
  • Europe (30.6%)
  • Sub-Saharan Africa (25.1%)
  • Asia (20.8%)
  • MENA (19.3%)
  • Pacific (18%)

Explanations

  • Economic Factors

  • Institutional Factors

  • Cultural Factors

Economic Factors

  • Developing Countries

    • Female literacy
    • Fertility rates
    • Employment

  • Advanced Industrial Democracies

    • Maternity leave
    • Access to daycare
    • Scheduling flexibility

Institutional Factors

  • Electoral systems

    • PR vs SMD

  • Level of democratization

    • Respect for human rights
    • Party competition

  • Gender quotas

Gender Quotas

  • Type

    • Voluntary party quotas
    • Candidate quotas
    • Reserved seats

  • Effectiveness: one study found quotas increased women’s representation by 9%

Cultural Factors

  • Political socialization: how people are taught by society to think of their roles in public and private spheres

  • Socialization influences

    • Whether women come forward
    • How they are viewed by party leaders
    • How women are viewed by voters

Preferences

  • Desire to be at home

  • Family obligations increase cost of entry

  • Aversion to conflict

History

How Women are Viewed

  • Taste Discrimination

    • Voter preference for male candidates

  • Statistical Discrimination

    • Not enough examples of female leaders

  • Recent Study

    • “Men make better political leaders”
    • Gender discrimination is “sticky”
    • More prevalent in non-egalitarian cultures

Discussion

  • With reference to Krook and Norris, what is the most compelling explanation for variations in women’s representation? What is the best way forward in terms of boosting women’s representation?

  • With reference to Waylen, why is politics dominated by men in most countries? How does her explanation differ from that of Krook and Norris?

  • Which explanation/framework is more compelling?

Conclusion