From breaking the rule to making the rules: the adoption, entrenchment, and diffusion of gender quotas in France

Abstract

Once a country allergic to any type of preferential treatment or quota measure for women, France has become a country that applies gender quotas to regulate women's presence and representation in politics, the business sector, public bodies, public administration, and even some civil society organizations. While research has concentrated on the adoption of electoral gender quotas in many countries and their international diffusion, few studies focus on explaining the successful diffusion of gender quotas from politics to other domains in the same country. This paper proposes to fill this gap by studying the particularly puzzling case of a country that at one point strongly opposed the adoption of gender quotas in politics, but, in less than a decade, transformed into one of the few countries applying gender quotas across several policy domains. This paper argues that the legal entrenchment of the parity principle, the institutionalization of parity in several successive women's policy agencies, and key players in these newly created agencies are mainly responsible for this unexpected development. The diffusion of gender quotas in France thus offers an illuminating example of under which conditions women's policy agencies can act autonomously to diffuse and impose a new tool for gender equality.

Gender Parity within the Gender—Sustainability Paradigm: A Case Study on Management Structures of the Romanian Academia

“…Finland, for example, introduced academic gender quotas in 1995. Spain adopted academic gender quotas in 2007 [60], and in 2014, France introduced gender quotas for all scientific communities [61].…”

Policy transfer routes: an evidence-based conceptual model to explain policy adoption

“…Policies with a fixed core but high flexibility in implementation will be adopted easier at destinations with a reduced normative or institutional fit (Kerlin 2009). Moreover, simple or simplified policies will require less organizational capacity and are therefore less prone to failure in this phase (Lepinard 2016).…”

A chance or a trap? Understanding gender equality schemes in management

“…However, because the above-mentioned policies tend to target mothers rather than fathers, work life reconciliation remains a broad issue in France. (Lépinard, 2015). Women still1 do the lion's share of domestic work and child rearing duties.…”

“…Despite the manifold legislative tools to ensure the application of gender policies, the lack of political will and the low involvement of economic decision-making instances have brought only poor results (Lépinard, 2015). To strengthen the policies, France has adopted gender quotas legislation across the board as a privileged tool to redress gender imbalance in decision-making bodies.…”

“…Gender quotas, when they entail legal sanctions, appear to be very efficient. While the private sector initially resisted the implementation of corporate board quotas it now adopted them with an eye to diversify and renew corporate boards (Lépinard 2015).…”