Women in Political Bodies as Policymakers

Arbeitspapier

We investigate how female representation impacts policymaking using the example of child care and new hand-collected data on local council elections in Bavaria. RDD estimations (mixed-gender races for last party-specific council seats) show that an additional female councilor accelerates the expansion of public child care by 40%. We also document an important nonlinearity: an additional woman accelerates the expansion of child care only in councils with few women. Council meeting minutes reveal that women can be effective in councils despite being a non-pivotal minority because they change "the conversation".

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 15983

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior ; Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation ; State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations: General ; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth ; Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
• Subject: gender composition ; political selection ; local councils ; child care

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Baskaran, Thushyanthan ; Hessami, Zohal
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/272610
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:43 AM CET