Improving women’s representation in politics through gender quotas

Abstract

Gender quotas for women in local government bodies can improve women's representation in politics, increase provision of public services, and improve perceptions of women as leaders.Posters for female political candidates in India. Photo: AjayTvm | Shutterstock.com Summary:Gender quotas are one policy tool designed to increase women's representation in politics. Women hold fewer than 25 percent of parliamentary seats worldwide, and just 12 percent of the world's heads of state and government are women. In many countries this imbalance extends to local governments.Countries are taking action: In 2013, 118 countries were implementing a form of gender quotas for an elected office.One way to implement gender quotas is by reserving a certain number of leadership positions for women. A review of eleven randomized evaluations in Afghanistan, Lesotho, and across 24 states in India found that reservation quotas influenced women's political participation and policy outcomes and increased the provision of public goods aligned with female voters' preferences. Further, quotas improved men's perceptions of women as leaders, increased the aspirations of girls, and helped women get elected even after quotas were removed. Most of the rigorous research drawn on in this insight comes from India; comparative conclusions should be drawn cautiously.This evidence largely suggests that governments seeking to improve women's representation in politics should consider reservation quotas for local leadership positions. Supporting Evidence:Women leaders invested more in policies and programs women care about. Quotas are important because women may have different preferences about public goods than men.Communities in India with gender quotas for local village leaders had more public goods overall than communities without quotas, and female leaders invested more than male leaders in public goods linked to women's concerns Elected women made independent choices. One risk of gender quotas is that reserving political seats for women may not effect genuine change. For example, husbands of elected female leaders may maintain power by controlling the actions of their wives. In India, women elected under quotas were more likely than their male counterparts to state that their spouses encouraged them to stand for election and helped them do their jobs [3]. However, differences in public goods provision and policy preferences between female and male leaders demonstrate that women were able to make their own governing decisions [3].In some cases, having a female leader meant women participated more in community governance. In Afghanistan, gender quotas in village development councils led to increased women's participation in village governance, community life, and economic activities [4]. In Indian communities with quotas, women were more likely to speak in community meetings [3] [10].In Lesotho, although women in quota communities reported being less interested in politics than women in non-quota communities, they had similar levels of participation ...