Does Gender Matter in the Production of Judges? Evidence From the Brazilian Judiciary

Abstract

There is no consensus in the literature on the effect of gender on the judicial performance of judges; however, some studies indicate that men produce more than women. Based on this, the present study has two main objectives. The first is to identify whether male judges produce more than female judges do, and the second is to identify whether the judicial production of males and females is related to the same factors. We use official secondary data from 2016 referring to 600 judges from the first instance of the State Court of São Paulo. The results do not show statistical evidence that gender influences the judicial production of judges. However, it is possible to affirm that the judicial production of male and female judges is influenced by different sets of variables. Implications of the results are discussed at the end of the article.

Keywords:

• justice administration
• gender
• judicial production
• judge