Women's parliamentary representation and environmental quality in Africa: Effects and transmission channels

This paper contributes to the literature on the relationship between gender and the environment. There are indeed very few studies on this topic, and existing studies have not yet investigated the channels through which women's presence in parliaments affects the environment. We use a stochastic impact model extended to the population, wealth and technology regression model to estimate both the effect and transmission of women parliamentarians on the environment in 25 African countries from 2000 to 2016. The empirical results show that the presence of women in parliament contributes to the improvement of environmental quality in Africa. In addition, the mediation analysis reveals that women parliamentarians not only have a direct positive effect on the environment but also a positive indirect effect through their impact on per capita income, corruption and development assistance. To enhance the positive effects of women parliamentarians on the environment, governments should design policies to encourage women to participate in economic activities, integrate anti-corruption programmes and participate in the management of development assistance.