Female political representation and substantive effects on policies: A literature review

Abstract

The share of women in political offices has increased considerably over the past few decades in almost every country in the world. Does this matter for policy outcomes? This is the first paper to provide a literature review on the substantive effects of female representation on policies. In developing countries, the increase in female political representation has caused a better provision of public goods, especially with regard to education and health. In developed countries, higher female representation has not affected public policies as measured by spending patterns. However, more recent evidence shows that female representation has induced changes in parliamentary deliberations and specific policy choices (e.g. more public child care) that may not be reflected in the observable composition of public spending. Finally, higher female representation has improved institutional quality by reducing corruption and rent-extraction by those in power.

Women Heads of State and Covid-19 Policy Responses

“…More equity in the distribution of healthcare resources can help in mitigating the effects of a pandemic. These results are consistent with the literature that has found systematic differences between men and women representatives in political decisions and outcomes (Hessami and da Fonseca 2020).…”

“…Women's preferences as representatives differ from the traditional political scenarios dominated by men due to women's social roles in defending issues related to social protection and care work and in opposing discrimination and inequalities (Hernández-Nicolás, Martín-Ugedo, and Mínguez-Vera 2018; Hessami and da Fonseca 2020). In other words, women politicians seek policies that have a correlation with their preferences for the provision of public goods and the size of government (Bhalotra and Clots-Figueras 2014;Ferreira and Gyourko 2014).…”

Pandemic Leadership: Sex Differences and Their Evolutionary–Developmental Origins

“…Real-life conversations between two males, however, involved much more competitive communication, both verbal and non-verbal, than those between two females, as reported in a study in the United Kingdom ( Grainger and Dunbar, 2009 ). Women are, on average, less willing than men to enter competitive situations, partially because women may be less capable than men in some competitive environments, especially when competing against the opposite sex ( Hessami and da Fonseca, 2020 ; see also Archer, 2019 ). Even when men and women have similar abilities, men still prefer competition at a much higher rate than women ( Hessami and da Fonseca, 2020 ).…”

Women in Economics: Stalled Progress

“…Top-50 departments are as ranked by the National Science Foundation according to field-specific research expenditures. 4 Figure 3 shows trends in the share of female assistant and full professors across seven discipline groups. For ease of presentation, we combine data from chemistry and four types of engineering departments (chemical, civil, electrical, and mechanical).…”

“…Economics remains solidly within the lowest group in terms of female faculty shares, alongside physics, math, and engineering, and far below the biological and other social sciences. At the senior level, economics seems to have lost some ground relative to other sciences during 4 Comparable data on top-50 departments is not available going back further in time. Using the NSF Survey of Doctoral Recipients (SDR), Ginther and Kahn (2004) and Ceci, Ginther, Kahn, and Williams (2014) show trends in the share of female assistant professors and tenured faculty across disciplines since 1973.…”