A Comparative Study of Gender Representation and Social Outcomes: The Effect of Political and Bureaucratic Representation

• Published date: 01 March 2021
• Author: Sanghee Park,Jiaqi Liang
• Date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13092

A Comparative Study of Gender Representation and Social Outcomes: The Effect of Political and Bureaucratic Representation 321

Sanghee Park

A Comparative Study of Gender Representation and Social

Outcomes: The Effect of Political and Bureaucratic

Representation

Abstract: This article examines whether gender representation of government leadership in the legislative and

executive branches improves social equity related to women’s social outcomes and how this effect is moderated by

the status of democracy. Using a panel data set on 135 OECD and non-OECD countries from 2005 to 2015, the

analysis shows that in non-OECD countries, political gender representation has a significant, positive impact on

female educational attainment and overall gender equality, while bureaucratic gender representation is significant

for educational attainment only. For OECD countries, political representation has a consistent effect on educational

attainment, labor force participation, and overall gender equality, but there is no evidence of bureaucratic

representation. Democratization plays a more critical role in shaping the relationship between institutional

representation and women’s social outcomes in non-OECD countries than their OECD counterparts, where gender

equality is attributable to broader social, economic, and cultural factors.

Evidence for Practice

• The effect of gender representation in political and administrative institutions are contingent on the type of

social outcomes, economic development, and the degree of democracy in a country.

• The effect of political gender representation increases as a non-OECD country moves to a more advanced

stage of democracy, but the moderating effect of democracy is not found for bureaucratic gender

representation.

• The effect of bureaucratic gender representation is strengthened by political gender representation in non-

OECD countries, but the effect is limited in both non-OECD and OECD countries.

• The study of representative bureaucracy needs to consider the role of political representation.

Jiaqi Liang

Boise State University University of Illinois at Chicago

This article examines whether gender

representation of government leadership

improves social equity related to women’s

social outcomes and how the status of democracy

moderates the effect of gender representation.1 As

the “third pillar” of public administration alongside

effectiveness and efficiency, social equity is an

integral dimension of government performance

(Frederickson 2005, 32; Riccucci 2009; Riccucci

and Van Ryzin 2017). As gender is one of the

most salient demographic identities in the research

on representation in political and administrative

institutions, we focus on two dimensions of gender

representation in government: (1) political gender

representation, or gender representation in the

legislative branch, and (2) bureaucratic gender

representation, or gender representation in the

executive branch.

Analyzing a longitudinal country-level data set, this

research makes a number of contributions to the

literature on comparative public administration. First,

this article expands the scope of the representative

bureaucracy scholarship to elected institutions

by simultaneously evaluating the effect of gender

representation in the legislative and executive

branches. Although the process of representation in

the legislative branch has been a focus of political

science research (Kantola 2009), public bureaucracy

plays a substantial role in the policy-making process

as “a parallel body” of the legislature (Groeneveld

and Van de Walle 2010, 244; Peters, Schröter, and

von Maravić 2015). In this study, we integrate

the two dimensions of political and bureaucratic

representation (Keiser et al. 2002; Meier and Morton

2015; Peters, Schröter, and von Maravić 2015, 3–4;

Riccucci and Van Ryzin 2017).

Second, this study advances our understanding of

contextual factors that condition the relationship

between government representativeness and social

outcomes. Previous research indicates that the impact

of representation (i.e., government’s demographic

composition) on social outcomes is contingent on a

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 2, pp. 321–332. © 2019 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13092.

Jiaqi Liang is assistant professor in

the Department of Public Administration,

College of Urban Planning and Public

Affairs, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Her research interests encompass public

management, bureaucratic politics, public

policy process, social equity, environmental

and energy policy, and comparative public

administration and policy. Her research

has appeared in the

Journal of Public

Administration Research and Theory,

Public Administration, International Public

Management Journal, Public Performance &

Management Review, Policy Studies Journal,

and

Review of Policy Research

.

E-mail: liangj@uic.edu

Sanghee Park is assistant professor

in the Department of Public Policy and

Administration, School of Public Service,

Boise State University. Her research efforts

focus on public management, public sector

governance/politics, comparative public

administration, diversity management,

and representative bureaucracy in relation

to political institutions. Her articles have

appeared the

Journal of Public Policy,

American Review of Public Administration,

International Public Management

Journal, Public Management Review,

Public Organization Review,

and

Public

Performance & Management Review

.

E-mail: sangheepark@boisestate.edu

Research Article:

Global PA

Symposium