The influence of women’s representation on social spending in local government

ABSTRACT

Compared to men, women tend to prioritize social services, which are usually the responsibility of local government. Female political representation often serves not only as an indicator for descriptive gender equality but also as a common policy instrument for substantive female representation. Yet, empirical evidence of female political representation’s influence on promoting female voters’ priorities is inconclusive. Examining the correlation between the percent of female politicians in Israeli local government and social spending from local government sources over nine budget years, this study shows that only education spending is influenced by female political representation and only when combined with a female mayor. Our main contribution is in showing that female representation in the local council on its own, without the representation of a female mayor, is insufficient for promoting female voters’ priorities.

KEYWORDS:

• Local government
• local budget
• female representation
• female mayor
• social spending

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oded Steklov

Oded Steklov is a PhD candidate at the Federmann School of Public Policy and Governance, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research focuses on gender and local government and specifically on the influence of female leaders over local policy. Steklov received his BA in economics and political science and his MA is in public policy, both from the Hebrew University.

Anat Gofen

Anat Gofen is an associate professor at the Federmann School of Public Policy and Governance, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on the role of outliers in the evolvement, formation and implications of public policy, with emphasis on the interrelationships between citizens and government during implementation. Gofen received her BSc in computer science and PhD in public policy from Hebrew University. She serves as co-editor of JCPA and as a cochair of the Public Policy study group of the European Group of Public Administration.

Yaniv Reingewertz

Yaniv Reingewertz is a senior lecturer at the Division of Public Administration and Policy at the School of Political Sciences at the University of Haifa. He finished his PhD in Economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main research areas are Political and Public Economics, Urban Economics and Environmental Economics. Reingewertz specializes in issues related to fiscal federalism, fiscal decentralization and municipal amalgamations.