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Female representation but male rule? Party competition and the political glass ceiling

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  • Folke, Olle

    () (Columbia University)

  • Rickne, Johanna

    () (Uppsala Center for Labor Studies)

Abstract

The share of women in legislative assemblies has grown substantially, but there is still under-representation and it is more severe for more influential appointments. This pattern is mirrored in Swedish municipalities, for which we analyze panel data on the career developments of all 35.000 elected politicians over six election cycles to examine why women fail to rise in the political hierarchy. We show that women have a higher turnover rate which keeps them from accumulating the seniority required to (ever) catch up with their male colleagues. In our analysis, we can rule out that less political experience, lower age, or different responses to changes in family structure are the major contributors to women’s disadvantage. Instead, we find that competition between political parties substantially improves women’s relative performance. We interpret this as evidence for a negative bias against women in the recruitment process being a major contributor to women’s high turnover rate.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Uppsala University, Department of Economics in its series Working Paper Series, Center for Labor Studies with number 2012:9.

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Length: 28 pages
Date of creation: 24 Apr 2012
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hhs:uulswp:2012_009

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Postal: Department of Economics, Uppsala University, P. O. Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden
Phone: + 46 18 471 25 00
Fax: + 46 18 471 14 78
Email:
Web page: http://www.nek.uu.se/
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Keywords: Careers in politics; Political competition; Supply of politicians;

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  1. Galasso, Vincenzo & Nannicini, Tommaso, 2009. "Competing on Good Politicians," IZA Discussion Papers 4282, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  2. Tim Besley, 2002. "Political institutions and policy choices: evidence from the United States," IFS Working Papers W02/13, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
  3. Irma Clots-Figueras, 2012. "Are Female Leaders Good for Education? Evidence from India," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 212-44, January.
  4. Svaleryd, Helena, 2007. "Women's Representation and Public Spending," Working Paper Series 701, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
  5. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2005. "Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Do Men Compete too Much?," Discussion Papers 04-030, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
  6. Marie-Claire Villeval & Nabanita Datta Gupta & Anders Poulsen, 2005. "Male and Female Competitive Behavior - Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 0512, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique (GATE), Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Université Lyon 2, Ecole Normale Supérieure.
  7. Alberto Alesina & Nouriel Roubini & Gerald D. Cohen, 1997. "Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262510944.
  8. Esteve-Volart, Berta & Bagues, Manuel, 2012. "Are women pawns in the political game? Evidence from elections to the Spanish Senate," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 387-399.
  9. Gagliarducci, Stefano & Paserman, Daniele, 2009. "Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena," IZA Discussion Papers 4128, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  10. Rachel Croson & Uri Gneezy, 2009. "Gender Differences in Preferences," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 448-74, June.
  11. Svaleryd, Helena & Vlachos, Jonas, 2009. "Political rents in a non-corrupt democracy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 355-372, April.
  12. Per Pettersson-Lidbom, 2008. "Do Parties Matter for Economic Outcomes? A Regression-Discontinuity Approach," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(5), pages 1037-1056, 09.
  13. Wittman, Donald, 1989. "Why Democracies Produce Efficient Results," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1395-1424, December.
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