The Effects of Women's Descriptive Representation on Government Behavior

• Published date: 01 May 2022
• Author: Jonathan Homola
• Date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12330

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 47, 2, May 2022

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12330

JONATHAN HOMOLA

Rice University, Houston, United States

The Effects of Women’s Descriptive

Representation on Government

Behavior

Does the representation of women in cabinet and party leadership posi-

tions affect whether governments are more or less likely to fulfill the policy prom-

ises they make during election campaigns? This research note studies the effects

of women’s descriptive representation in cabinet and party leadership on policy-

making by analyzing the pledge fulfillment of parties in 10 European countries,

the United States, and Canada. The empirical analysis suggests that governing

parties are more likely to fulfill their election promises when levels of women’s

representation are higher. The results have implications for our understanding

of the descriptive and substantive representation of women, as well as for party

competition and policymaking more broadly.

Women’s descriptive representation affects political parties’

policy positions and policymaking. More specifically, prior re-

search suggests that in some settings, female MPs outperform their

male counterparts on a number of important legislative activities

(Anzia and Berry 2011; Holman and Mahoney 2018; Murray 2010;

Weeks and Baldez 2015). Moreover, we also know that as the num-

ber of female MPs increases, parties address a greater diversity of

issues in their election campaigns (Greene and O’Brien 2016), in-

crease the emphasis on social justice issues in their party platforms

(Kittilson 2011), and become more likely to introduce and cospon-

sor bills focusing on feminist and gendered interests (Barnes 2016;

Celis 2006; Franceschet and Piscopo 2008; Schwindt- Bayer 2006;

Swers 2005).

Although we know that female politicians shape the policy

agenda and the policymaking process, no prior work has exam-

ined whether parties are actually more likely to enact the policy

promises they make when they have more women in positions of

political power. More generally, while there is a large literature on

the impact of women parliamentarians, there is less work focusing

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