The Impact of Female Cabinet Ministers on a Female-Friendly Labor Environment

Abstract

The literature indicates that the representation of women in legislatures is positively associated with the passage of female-friendly social policy (e.g., child care or family leave). However, there is little corresponding research concerning the effects of women in cabinet on female-friendly social policy. I argue that this gap must be addressed, because most of the advanced industrial democracies are parliamentary democracies in which policies typically originate at the cabinet level, and governments typically enjoy substantial control over the legislative process. Thus, women in cabinet positions should be ideally placed to promote female-friendly policies; indeed, they are likely to be in a better position to promote these policies than their legislative counterparts. The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of female cabinet ministers in the adoption of female-friendly policies, thus addressing this gap in the gender and politics literature. It should be noted that the influence of female officeholders on female-friendly policy may differ by policy. To assess female officeholders’ effect on female friendly policy in general, I create an index measure using 17 variables related to these policy areas. Using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, I find that female ministers have a significant effect on the adoption of policies that help to create a more female-friendly working environment.

KEYWORDS:

• descriptive representation
• substantive representation
• politics and gender
• social welfare policy
• female-friendly policy
• cabinet
• executive-legislative relations

Notes

1. Based on the Support for Mother’s Employment Index introduced by Gornick et al. (1997). See also Gornick and Meyers (2003; 2004).

2. Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, from 1970 to 2005. I do not include Switzerland in this study, because Lijphart (1999) and Strøm et al. (2003, 4) specifically classify it as nonparliamentary; further evidence of Swiss exceptionalism is found throughout Doring (1995, e.g., 114, 119 147, 162, 175, 228).

3. I am not arguing that all women should be penalized because they have the potential to be mothers. I am arguing that the “mommy penalty” is already being levied; thus, if policies are intended to lessen the opportunity cost of motherhood, they should also lessen the opportunity cost of potential motherhood (i.e., being a woman).

4. Although child care is often viewed as an issue only when children are under the age of three, the age at which many countries begin to provide preprimary education, child care remains an issue for school-age children in systems where the school day—or, as in France, the school week—is not continuous (Gornick and Meyers 2003).

5. Denmark, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. However, Switzerland’s executive-legislative system is not similar in structure or form to the systems in the other three countries; thus, its inclusion may explain the contradiction between the findings. (See footnote 2 for further explanation of Swiss exceptionalism.)

6. There is variation among states; for example, from 1971 to 1990, Ireland passed 0 of 35 private member’s bills, while Belgium passed about 332 of 4,548, and the United Kindgom passed about 178 of 1,320 (Mattson 1995).

7. Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom (Siaroff 2003, 458); Germany, 74 percent; | Ireland, 96 percent (Andeweg and Nijzink 1995, 160).

8. France, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden (Siaroff 2003, 458); the Netherlands, 53 percent; France, 65 percent (Andeweg and Nijzink 1995, 160).

9. In the only first-past-the-post case in this study, the United Kingdom, the party controls candidacy. In addition, even in an open list system, voters may rearrange the list, but candidates are selected by the party.

10. Indeed, female ministers tend to hold portfolios related to caring professions, such as health, education, and welfare (Siaroff 2000; Towns 2003), thus placing them in the most advantageous positions for influencing female-friendly policy.

11. Data for Greece, Portugal, and Spain are only for the period following democratization.

12. There is strong evidence that policy analysis using index measures is effective. For example, Weldon (2010) uses index measures to test for the determinants of paid leave and generosity of family leave (weeks), whereas Plantenga and Hansen (1999) developed a composite indicator of gender equality to test the efficacy of reconciliation policies on gender equality outcomes. Other examples include Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) studies (e.g., OECD 2001; Lambert 2008).

13. They focused on fully-paid maternity leave.

14. Job Protection (pregnancy and family leave), regulation of weekly hours, protections for part-time work, and gendered regulation of nonstandard working hours.

15. Australia 1974 and Sweden 2005, respectively.

16. All data for women in cabinet were compiled from the annual editions of the Europa World Yearbook (Europa Publications Limited, 1981–2006); no deputy ministers/subministerial positions are included. Cabinet ministers’ names were cross-referenced with data from the Guide to Women Leaders files (Christensen 2007).

17. These data were gathered from the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s (IPU 1995) Women in National Parliaments 1945–1995: A World Statistical Study and the IPU online archives (www.ipu.org). In Model 3, the percentage of female MPs is compressed into a categorical variable: 1 = 0–10%, 2 = 11–20%, 3 = 21–30%, and 4 = 31% and above.

18. Data are from Siaroff (2003); see Table 4 for ED scores by country.

19. To properly estimate the triple interaction term, WC*FMP and ED*FMP must be included; these are not explanatory variables.

20. Data are from Visser (2011).

21. Left cabinet data for 1980–2000 are from Huber et al. (2004). Data for Greece, Spain, and Portugal, all years, and all other countries for 2001–2003 are from the IPU (1996–2010); left cabinet calculated as per Huber et al. (2004), that is, left party parliamentary seats as a percentage of all governing party(s) parliamentary seats.

22. Data drawn from Davis (1997) and Siaroff (2000; 2003).

23. GDP per capita data were gathered from OECD.stat (2008).

24. Results not presented here; available from the author upon request. The effect of women’s movements is not significant in any of the three models; however, it is negative only in the family leave analysis.

25. Childs and Krook (2009) specify legislative actors; however, given minsters’ involvement in the legislative process, it is not a stretch to apply the “critical actor” concept to cabinet ministers.