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Gender bias and women’s political performance

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  • Cella, Michela
  • Manzoni, Elena

Abstract

We model voters’ gender bias as a prejudice on women’s competence coming from a distorted prior. We analyse the effect of this bias in a two-period two-party election model in which voters care about both policy preference and competence. We find that, if voters (wrongly) believe that women are drawn from a distribution of competences with higher weights on lower values, female politicians are less likely to win office but, when elected, they are on average more competent than male elected officials. As a consequence, female incumbents seek re-election more often.

Suggested Citation

  • Cella, Michela & Manzoni, Elena, 2023. "Gender bias and women’s political performance," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:77:y:2023:i:c:s0176268022001173
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2022.102314
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gender bias; Elections; Female politicians;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

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