Do women get fewer votes? No.

Abstract

We study data on the gender of over 21,000 unique candidates in all Canadian federal elections since 1921, when the first women ran for seats in Parliament. This large dataset allows us to compute precise estimates of the difference in the electoral fortunes of men and women candidates. When accounting for party effects and time trends, we find that the difference between the vote shares of men and women is substantively negligible (±0.5 percentage point). This gender gap was larger in the 1920s (±2.5 percentage points), but it is now statistically indistinguishable from zero. Our results have important normative implications: Political parties should recruit and promote more women candidates, because they remain under-represented in Canadian politics, and because they do not suffer from a substantial electoral penalty.

Do Voters Judge the Performance of Female and Male Politicians Differently? Experimental Evidence from the United States and Australia

“…Our findings with respect to retrospective judgments are in line with an increasing set of studies that find no strong evidence of gender stereotyping by voters (Brooks 2013;Burrell 1992;Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994;Dolan 2004Dolan , 2010Dolan , 2014aDolan , 2014bDolan and Lynch 2016;Fox 2006;Fox and Oxley 2003;Hayes and Lawless 2015;Hayes, Lawless, and Baitinger 2014;Lawless and Pearson 2008;Sevi, Arel-Bundock, and Blais 2019;Smith and Fox 2001). In keeping with this literature, our study suggests that the advancement of women in politics might not be significantly hindered by the electorate.…”

“…More recently, a growing body of research finds no clear evidence of voter bias toward female candidates. A range of studies in the United States and Canada find that when women run for office they win at the same rates as male candidates (Burrell 1992;Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994;Fox 2006;Fox and Oxley 2003;Lawless and Pearson 2008;Sevi, Arel-Bundock, and Blais 2019;Smith and Fox 2001). Extensive research by Dolan (2004Dolan ( , 2010Dolan ( , 2014aDolan ( , 2014b, Dolan and Lynch (2016), and Brooks (2013) further finds that gender stereotypes do not affect voters' judgments of politicians once partisanship and incumbency status are taken into account (also see Hayes and Lawless 2015, but see Schneider and Bos 2016).…”

Who Runs? Canadian Federal and Ontario Provincial Candidates from 1867 to 2019

“…So far, these data have been used for five peer-reviewed manuscripts (Sevi, Yoshinaka and Blais, 2018; Sevi, Arel-Bundock and Blais, 2018; Sevi, Blais and Mayer, 2020; Tolley, Besco and Sevi, 2020; Sevi, Blais and Arel-Bundock, 2021); they have also been used in a number of presentations at academic conferences, in reports by think tanks, 7 by journalists, 8 and in many papers currently online or in the pipeline. As such, these data have been scrutinized by different researchers.…”

“…These data will allow researchers to investigate a number of important topics, including: the share of female candidates over an extended period of time; which occupations do better in politics (Sevi, Blais and Mayer, 2020); if women get fewer votes than men (Sevi, Arel-Bundock and Blais, 2018; Sevi, Blais and Arel-Bundock, 2021); how long politicians tend to stay in politics; the advantage gained by incumbency; how well independents do; the consequences for politicians who are elected under a party banner and then switch their party affiliation and run again either at the same level of government (Sevi, Yoshinaka and Blais, 2018) or across two different levels (provincial and federal); the progressive ambition of politicians across different levels of elections; and if by-elections are more favourable to smaller parties and/or independent candidates.…”

Comment chercher ?

“…(Plescia et al, 2020) ; Do Women get Fewer Votes ? No (Sevi et al, 2019) ; What is the Cost of Voting ? (Blais et al, 2019) J’ai évidemment une prédilection pour les titres se terminant avec un point d’interrogation, ce qui reflète ma conception de la recherche qui consiste à donner des réponses les plus claires possible (même si souvent nuancées) à des questions les plus simples possible.…”