Quota Effects Moderated by Descriptive Gender Representation Within Legislatures: A Cross-national Analysis

ABSTRACT

This study revisits the links between gender quotas and gender egalitarian outcomes by focusing on the role of gender representative legislatures. Specifically, it investigates whether gender quotas have a substantive and symbolic effect on societal outcomes, and whether the link is moderated by women’s descriptive representation changing over time. This study sheds empirical light on both outputs (or process) and outcomes (or impact) of a quota policy and offers insight into pathways by which increased women’s representation within legislatures reinforces or weakens the effect of the quota policies. The panel data analysis drawn from 169 countries over the recent three decades (1990-2017) reveals a significant interactive effect of quotas and women’s representation in legislatures, suggesting that quotas’ societal impact increases as women’s representation increases, but with diminishing returns to a certain point. The findings corroborate the 30% level to which gender quotas as a policy tool significantly impact women’s political empowerment and raise questions on the validity of the critical mass argument in the political setting.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender quotas
• descriptive representation
• legislative dynamics
• country comparison
• policy outcomes

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Adopted quota dummy – ‘country has adopted a gender quota as part of its constitution or secondary law. Coded ‘1’ beginning in the year a quota is introduced in the constitution or secondary law and in all subsequent years, unless the quota is overturned or withdrawn.’ Implemented quota dummy – ‘country has implemented a gender quota in an election. Coded ‘1’ beginning in the year a quota has been implemented in an election – whether or not the law was followed -- and in all subsequent years, unless the quota is overturned or withdrawn’ (Hughes et al., 2017).

2 Clayton and Zetterberg (2018) theorized that ‘if quotas are endogenous to a national sentiment or political climate … , we are most likely to observe the legislative effects of quotas following quota adoption—and not necessarily following implementation … ’ (p. 917).

3 Dollar figures for GDP are converted from domestic currencies using single year official exchange rates. All the data for economic variables and details about measurement can be found in World Bank Open Data.

4 However, it may bias the results by absorbing covariates associated with other regressors in the dataset (Nickell, 1981; Bellemare et al., 2017).

5 The percentage of female labor force participation was measured with the proportion of the population ages 15 and older that is economically active out of total labor force (e.g., Franceschet et al., 2012; Matland 1998); Women’s unemployment rate is measured by the share of the female labor force that is without work but available for and seeking employment; and Women’s educational achievement is calculated by the ratio of female to male pupils enrolled in secondary school (UIS Statistics, UNESCO).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sanghee Park

Sanghee Park is associate professor in the School of Public Service, Boise State University, Boise, ID, USA. Her research efforts focus on public management, public sector governance, and representative bureaucracy. E-mail: [email protected]