Kinship ties and female political participation: The case of Philippine mayors

Recent years have seen improvements in gender representation in the political sphere. One important contributor is the female politicians’ kinship ties to incumbent or previous politicians. There are concerns, however, that such improvements are merely nominal. I quantify the extent to which female politicians with kinship ties are more likely to serve as placeholders. I utilize the transitory nature of term limits among local Philippine officials and focus on Philippine mayors and their kinship ties to their predecessors. Using the universe of mayors that followed term-limited incumbents from 2004 to 2013, I find that female mayors are less likely to stand for reelection after one term than males. Further investigation reveals that the gender gap is primarily explained by the gap among mayors with kinship ties to their predecessors. The estimated gender gap is more than one-fourth of the average likelihood of running for reelection in the sample. I also find that the predecessors of female mayors with kinship ties are more likely to run for mayor after their gap term and win. The results are consistent with political clans disproportionately using their female members as placeholders. In addition, female incumbents with kinship ties are more likely to exit politics after one term than their male counterparts. This result suggests that the political participation of female kins of term-limited mayors is more transitory than males.