Backlash in the Backyard: Female Representation and Gender Attitudes in the UK

We analyze the effect of increased women representation in politics on gender attitudes within the adult UK population, combining 2002-2019 local election results in England with survey responses from Understanding Society and the British Household Panel Survey. Our Regression Discontinuity analysis shows that the election of a female councillor generates a shift towards more conservative gender attitudes in the population. This backlash effect is entirely driven by male respondents and by those more affected by economic insecurity, i.e. unemployed individuals and those more exposed to the import competition with China. Additionally, we find suggestive evidence that the backlash mainly affects attitudes related to the private sphere, rather than views about society at large. The effect on female respondents is very limited, but our results show that the election of a woman raises their support for work-family policies. Importantly, given the context of our analysis, our results are unlikely to be driven by gender differences in policymaking.