How Party Systems Shape Local–National Gender Gaps

Abstract

Women’s representation is highest in local assemblies in some countries, while others display the largest share of female office-holders at the national level. Drawing on a new data set mapping the representation of women at all four levels of government in Germany during the 2000s, we argue that differences in party system configurations across echelons explain these distinct patterns and provide evidence for this claim. We show that left-wing parties, the main source of female office-holders, perform better at higher echelons, while minor parties and independent representatives, which favour male candidacy, win more seats at the lowest levels of government.

Local preferences in candidate selection: Evidence from a conjoint experiment among party leaders in Germany

“…Studies show that left-leaning, progressive parties are most active, because they tend to implement gender quotas and aim to represent all groups in society (see, e.g. Caul, 1999; Fortin-Rittberger et al, 2019; Krook and Childs, 2010; Lijphart, 1999; Rincker, 2009; Sundström and Stockemer, 2015). Consequently, we expect local selectors from progressive parties to prefer female candidates irrespective of their own gender.…”

Women's management in local government: The effects of substantive representation on welfare service efficiency

“…Progressive parties place women in positions that are more likely to gain representation, while conservative parties move them to positions with less probability of being elected (Heyndels & Kuehnhanss, 2020). Following this line, progressive parties usually provide the majority of women in parliaments at all levels of government, while conservative parties and independents often avoid the question of female candidatures (Fortin-Rittberger et al, 2019). In addition, the presence of a mentor may be key to achieving leadership in local government.…”

Women Leadership at the Apex. The Distinctiveness of Urban Women Mayors in Europe

“…Other authors have precised that let-wing parties are more prone to granting women their rst access to elected positions, while right-wing parties score higher in maintaining them in parliaments, showing more eectiveness in promoting their careers (Santana & Aguilar, 2019), maybe because they are more interested in having proessional emale MPs. Also, applying to local governments, let-wing parties seem to contribute the largest share o women in parliaments and assemblies at all echelons, while minor parties in particular, but also conservative and right-wing parties oten tend to eschew the topic o emale candidacies (Fortin-Rittberger et al 2017). Specially in the ideological variable, the dominant literature in this eld is based on the available evidence, which turns out to be somehow ideologically sel-selected, and thus subject to limitations.…”

“…Indeed, most o the single country works rely on the question o the determinants o women mayors' representation, rather than policy priorities or social background, which are largely dependent on the data availability. In this regard, there is research on the US (Ferreira and Gyourko 2014;Kjaer, Dittmar, and Carroll 2018;Holman 2014) Germany (Fortin-Rittberger et al 2017), Brazil (Meier and Funk 2017;Funk and Philips 2018) or Australia (Ryan, Pini, and Brown 2005), but to the best o our knowledge, none o them is based on a large sample systematically surveying mayors.…”