Is There a Gender Gap in the Value of Campaign Resources?

Abstract

Efforts to explain the underrepresentation of women in Congress, as well as other institutions, have failed to detect significant gender differences in the availability of campaign resources. Thus one may be tempted to conclude that the underrepresentation of women is unrelated to the availability of resources. However, implicit in this conclusion is an assumption that the effects of resources are gender neutral. If the value of a resource depends on the gender of the candidate, women may need more or less of a resource to do as well as men. On this note, the author tests that assumption by examining House races between 1988 and 1992. For challengers, the author finds that the value of campaign spending and party strength is greater for men than women, whereas in open-seat races, women received greater value from a strong party than did men.

Why Aren't There More Republican Women in Congress? Gender, Partisanship, and Fundraising Support in the 2010 and 2012 Elections

“…Recent research indicates that gender-neutral outcomes mask systematic biases in the electoral environment, such that women have to work harder and be more qualified to achieve the same results (Fulton 2012;Herrick 1996;Pearson and McGhee 2013). As a result, female quality challengers, as measured by having held previous elective office, may work harder and raise more money than similarly situated male quality challengers.…”

“…With regard to fundraising, Herrick (1996) finds that female challengers had to spend more money than male challengers to win the same share of votes, and the disparity was largest for Republican women. Meanwhile, Crespin and Dietz (2010) find that women raise more money in individual donations.…”

Candidate Gender and Voter Support in State Legislative Elections

“…An analysis by Burrell (1985) on data from the 1970s and 1980s finds that spending by women is actually more effective than spending by men. But another study using recent congressional data finds that spending by women to be less effective than that allocated by men (Herrick 1996). Whether or not these differences are due to the different time periods is unclear, however, the approach used in these studies is one that can aid us in our present analysis.…”

“…But if voters harbor a negative gender bias, the campaign spending by women may be less potent than spending by men. Analyses on the congressional level have examined such interactive effects between gender and campaign spending (Burrell 1985;Herrick 1996) and such a perspective is clearly warranted in the sub-national setting. 2 The dual approach of assessing both direct and indirect effects will provide a more thorough assessment of the role that gender plays in influencing aggregate voting in state legislative elections.…”

Women Candidates and Judicial Elections: Telling an Untold Story

“…research on women and elections has explored the impact of gender in electing members to Congress, state legislatures, and executive offices (e.g., Berch 1996Berch ,2004Burrell 1985Burrell , 1994Burrell , 1998Burrell , 2006Falk and Kenski 2006;Fox and Oxley 2003;Herrick 1996;Herrnson and Lucas 2006;Jalalzai 2006;Koch 2000;McDermott 1998;Melich 2005;Palmer and Simon 2006;Sanbonmatsu 2002aSanbonmatsu , 2006b), but, oddly, has failed to examine how or if gender also affects judicial elections.…”