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Does the election of a female leader clear the way for more women in politics?

Author

Listed:
  • Thushyanthan Baskaran

    (Department of Economics, University of Siegen, Germany)

  • Zohal Hessami

    (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany)

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, 2017. "Does the election of a female leader clear the way for more women in politics?," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2017-09, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    • Handle: RePEc:knz:dpteco:1709
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Female leaders; gender; political labor market; discrimination; preferential voting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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