The symbolic impact of women's representation on citizens' political attitudes: Measuring the effect through survey experiments (original) (raw)
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The symbolic impact of women’s representation on citizens’ political attitudes
2015
Women’s political presence is expected to impact on citizens’ political attitudes by symbolizing that women are just as capable to govern as men, which provides a rolemodel effect to female citizens and signals the inclusiveness of the political system to all social groups. Research on whether women’s representation enhances the legitimacy of, closeness to and satisfaction with political institutions, as well as levels of political engagement is still in its infancy, not least because of several empirical and methodological challenges, including issues of spuriousness, reversed causation and endogeneity. We use an experimental online survey specifically designed to examine whether exposure to distinct scenarios about greater women’s representation and its concomitant effects have an impact on citizens’ political attitudes. Our results show that respondents’ evaluation of the political system is positively influenced by the use of framing on greater women’s representation whereas the...
Politics, Groups, and Identities
In examining what the presence of female politicians symbolize to citizens, especially to women, scholars have sought to empirically prove whether it enhances the legitimacy of, closeness to and satisfaction with political institutions, as well as levels of political efficacy and participation. By taking stock of the burgeoning quantitative research examining the symbolic effects of women's descriptive representation on citizens' political attitudes and behavior, we will discuss the main empirical and methodological challenges that may have led scholars to reach at best mixed results, to identify merely modest effects or to not find any trace of them. These challenges include difficulties in properly establishing the causal effects and in operationalizing the dependent variable as well as a dearth of adequate data. Our contribution discusses the advantages provided by new methodological avenues, such as survey experiments vis-à-vis standard public opinion surveys, to circumvent the shortcomings identified.
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European Political Science Review, 2021
Female representation in political decision-making positions is now a salient issue in public discussions throughout Europe. Understanding public attitudes towards a more balanced gender distribution in politics remains limited, however. Using a 2017 Eurobarometer, we focus on cross-national differences in public support for increased female participation in politics to address this limitation. Building on the policy feedbacks literature, we stress the role of gender quotas. We argue that quotas-as legislative devices usually adopted through elite-driven initiatives-stimulate support for stronger female representation. Ensuing debates on quotas raise individual awareness about the underrepresentation of women-informational effect-and, once adopted, give clear signal that persistent gender imbalance is a social problem to be redressed-normative effect. Our empirical analysis supports this argument. Citizens in countries with gender quotas display stronger support for increased female participation in politics.
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Australian Journal of Political Science, 2019
Gender balance in political representation is an important goal of governments. In this paper, we ask: Do voters judge female politicians less favourably than male politicians, when given an otherwise identical set of information about their backgrounds? We employ an innovative online experiment (N = 1933) to measure Australians' attitudes towards female politicians and examine a series of hypotheses. We find voters see female candidates as more capable and are more likely to vote for them, but they are less likely to expect them to win. Female candidates are seen as more capable in their military and healthcare roles, but gender is perceived to be a major barrier to a female candidate's success. Women and those aligning with the Labor/ Green parties are more supportive of a female candidate, but we find limited evidence that those aligning with the Liberal/ Nationals are openly hostile to a female candidate.
Women Want an Answer! Field Experiments on Elected Officials and Gender Bias
Magni, Gabriele, and Ponce de Leon, Zoila. Women Want an Answer! Field Experiments on Elected Officials and Gender Bias. Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2020
Are elected officials more responsive to men than women inquiring about access to government services? Women face discrimination in many realms of politics, but evidence is limited on whether such discrimination extends to interactions between women and elected officials. In recent years, several field experiments have examined public officials' responsiveness. The majority focused on racial bias in the United States, while the few experiments outside the US were usually single-country studies. We explore gender bias with the first large-scale audit experiment in 5 countries in Europe (). A citizen alias whose gender is randomized contacts members of parliament about unemployment benefits or healthcare services. The results are surprising. Legislators respond significantly more to women (+3% points), especially in Europe (+4.3% points). In Europe, female legislators in particular reply substantially more to women (+8.4% points).
This analysis challenges the notion that women's representation does not influence gender gaps in political participation in crossnational studies by arguing that women's representation should be measured differently. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, the paper demonstrates that long-term effects of women's representation are more important than short-term measures in understanding gender gaps in a variety of political activities. The length of time since women have gained access to the political system explains gender gaps to a greater extent than the presence of women in the legislature and cabinet at one point in time. Additionally, when women's representation is measured by the presence of women politicians in cabinet, findings show that the conclusions of previous work on women's representation and political behavior may not extend beyond the US case. Finally, this study demonstrates that the type of political activities matter when analyzing the effect of women's representation.