The Increasing Effectiveness of National Gender Quotas, 1990–2010

Paxton, Pamela; Hughes, Melanie M.

doi:10.1111/lsq.12079

Cited by 58 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…Moreover, the literature points to the positive effects of changing norms. Over time increasing norms of equality are expected to decrease political party efforts to sidestep quota targets (Paxton and Hughes, 2015). Thus, the time factor should be taken into consideration in the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most recent developments focus on the effectiveness of gender quotas (see e.g. Franceschet et al, 2012;Paxton and Hughes, 2015;Schwindt-Bayer, 2009).…”

Section: The Literature On Gender Quotasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Domestic and international norms are becoming women-friendly and women's presence in politics is now acceptable and desirable. Party elites might be accepting these new norms and gender activists' arguments that having a higher number of women in politics is normatively appropriate (Bush, 2011;Paxton and Hughes, 2015). For example, the European Union promotes the idea of gender equality among its member states (European Parliament, 2013;MacRae, 2012).…”

Section: The Literature On Gender Quotasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Women in parliament: assessing the effectiveness of gender quotas in Poland

Gwiazda

2017

The Journal of Legislative Studies

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Gender quotas aim to increase women's parliamentary representation. However, the effectiveness of quotas varies. This article explores this issue further by examining the case of Poland, where gender quotas were introduced in 2011. The Polish case presents an interesting puzzle. Although the overall number of women candidates increased almost twofold in comparison with the pre-quota period, this translated into only a slight increase in the number of women deputies in 2011 and 2015. Hence, the impact of quotas was limited. However, the partisan analysis shows that there was a significant variation among individual parties: whereas some parties promoted wholeheartedly women's access to political office, other parties did not facilitate it.By drawing on rational choice institutionalism, this article shows that institutions and preferences of political parties matter for the effectiveness of gender quotas. In the case of ineffective gender quota policy, political parties have a final say in women's parliamentary representation. 4 The literature points to a third institutional provision too, that is, the gender quota size. But it will not be examined here because it has remained the same in Poland (quota size of 35%). 5 Three parties, the Freedom Union, the Labour Union and the Democratic Left Alliance, introduced party quotas of at least 30% of each gender on candidates' lists for the 2001 election. 6 While there has been a steady increase in women's representation in the Sejm, the representation of women in the Senate has been very poor and remained at a low level of around 12% because of the majoritarian electoral system and the lack of gender quotas (see Gwiazda, 2016). 7 The elections of 1989 were semi-free for the Sejm where 65% of seats were reserved for the communists, but they were freely contested for a re-established Senate.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most recent developments focus on the effectiveness of gender quotas (see e.g. Franceschet et al, 2012;Paxton and Hughes, 2015;Schwindt-Bayer, 2009).…”

Section: The Literature On Gender Quotasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Literature On Gender Quotasmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Women in parliament: assessing the effectiveness of gender quotas in Poland

Gwiazda

2017

The Journal of Legislative Studies

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“…This result is somewhat unexpected, since most research shows that quota laws increase women's representation at the national level (Paxton, Hughes & Painter 2010;Hughes 2011;Paxton & Hughes 2015, but see Hughes 2009. Still, an important finding is that policy design matters; higher thresholds, placement mandates, and strict enforcement mechanisms have been shown to enhance quota effectiveness (Schwindt-Bayer 2009).…”

Section: Robustness Checksmentioning

confidence: 98%

Quotas and Party Priorities: Direct and Indirect Effects of Quota Laws

Weeks

2018

Political Research Quarterly

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In light of increasing numbers of women in politics, extant research has examined the role of women in the parliamentary party on agenda-setting. This paper complements that literature by exploring the effect of a gendered institution theorized to promote both numbers of women and awareness of women’s interests: gender quota laws. I suggest that after a quota law, parties could have incentives to either reduce ( backlash effect) or increase ( salience effect) attention to women’s policy concerns. Using matching and regression methods with a panel data set of parties in advanced democracies, I find that parties in countries that implement a quota law devote more attention to social justice issues in their manifestos than similar parties in countries without a quota. Furthermore, the paper shows that this effect is driven entirely by the law itself. Contrary to expectations, quota laws are not associated with increases in women in my (short-term) sample; it is thus no surprise that no evidence of an indirect effect through numbers of women is found. I interpret the findings as evidence of quota contagion, whereby quotas cue party leaders to compete on gender equality issues.

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“…Finally, we expected the generation born in the late 1970s and in the 1980s to have experienced a further strengthening of women's rights in society and politics (Paxton and Hughes, , b). Along with these value changes have come some concrete societal changes (such as laws favouring the inclusion of women in the workplace, such as childcare provisions) and political changes (through the adoption of gender quota provisions in political parties as well as in legislatures) (Pascall and Lewis, ).…”

Section: Theoretical Contributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Women's Representation across Different Generations: A Longitudinal Analysis of the European Parliament

Stockemer

Sundström

2019

J of Common Market Studies

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In this article, we focus on generational differences in women's representation and hypothesize that younger generations of women should be more highly represented than older generations, both in general and within the same parliament. We tested this hypothesis with data on all members who have ever served in the European Parliament since 1979. Of the four generations who have ever served in Brussels and Strasbourg – the World War II generation, the 1968 generation, the post‐1968 generation and the post‐materialist generation – we found both that women's representation increased with every generation and that their representation differs between generations within the same parliament. Finally, our results indicate that while these processes occurred roughly one generation later in eastern and southern Europe, yet, they happened faster in these parts of the European Union.

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The Increasing Effectiveness of National Gender Quotas, 1990–2010

Cited by 58 publications

References 60 publications

Women in parliament: assessing the effectiveness of gender quotas in Poland

Women in parliament: assessing the effectiveness of gender quotas in Poland

Quotas and Party Priorities: Direct and Indirect Effects of Quota Laws

Women's Representation across Different Generations: A Longitudinal Analysis of the European Parliament

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