Quotas For Women In Politics Gender And Candidate Selection Reform Worldwide

Candidate choice survey experiments in the form of conjoint or vignette experiments have become a standard part of the political science toolkit for understanding the effects of candidate characteristics on vote choice. We collect 67 such studies from all over the world and reanalyze them using a standardized approach. We find that the average effect of being a woman (relative to a man) is a gain of approximately 2 percentage points. We find some evidence of heterogeneity across contexts, candidates, and respondents. The difference is somewhat larger for white (versus black) candidates, and among survey respondents who are women (versus men) or, in the U.S. context, ∗Replication files are available in the JOP Data Archive on Dataverse (http://thedata.harvard.edu/ dvn/dv/jop). †Susanne Schwarz is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544. Alexander Coppock is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520. We would like to thank William Hunt for his research assistance, as well as Dawn Teele and Amanda Clayton for their support and comments. We also thank our anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback. Previous versions of this manuscript were presented at the MPSA Annual Conference in 2018 as well as the Yale University Gender in the Social Sciences Workshop. Lastly, this project would not have been possible without the many researchers who generously shared their data with us.

What Have We Learned About Gender From Candidate Choice Experiments? A Meta-analysis of 67 Factorial Survey Experiments

Around the world, humans are living longer and politicians are getting older. But what do voters think about politicians of advanced age? We conduct a meta-analysis of 16 conjoint design-based candidate-choice experiments in seven democracies, revealing that older hypothetical candidates are consistently less likely to be favored by respondents—whether compared to the youngest alternative or the second-oldest alternative. We then report the findings of a novel conjoint experiment on Japanese voters designed to elicit whether the milestone of entering a new decade of age (70 vs. 69 years) affects respondents’ preferences for hypothetical candidates. Although at most 730 days separate candidates of these ages (limiting concerns of substantial differences in health or fitness), we find a significant penalty for the older candidate. Together, our findings highlight the mismatch between voters’ preferences for younger politicians and the ostensible gerontocracy that governs much of the world. 

Just a Number? Voter Evaluations of Age in Candidate-Choice Experiments

Around the world, humans are living longer and politicians are getting older. But what do voters think about politicians of advanced age? We conduct a meta-analysis of sixteen conjoint design-based candidate choice experiments in seven democracies, revealing that older hypothetical candidates are consistently less likely to be favored by respondents—whether compared to the youngest alternative or the second-oldest alternative. We then report the findings of a novel conjoint experiment on Japanese voters designed to elicit whether the milestone of entering a new decade of age (70 versus 69 years) affects respondents’ preferences for hypothetical candidates. Although at most 730 days separate candidates of these ages (limiting concerns of substantial differences in health or fitness), we find a significant penalty for the older candidate. Together, our findings highlight the mismatch between voters’ preferences for younger politicians and the ostensible gerontocracy that governs much of the world.

Just a Number? Voter Evaluations of Age in Candidate Choice Experiments

The Arab world has historically had limited descriptive representation for women, although that is changing. Will having more women officeholders lead women citizens to become more engaged? Or could it depress engagement due to pervasive gender biases? To answer these questions, this paper uses a nationally-representative experiment in Tunisia. Unexpectedly, people were less likely to want to contact their representatives when primed to think of a mixed-gender group of officeholders compared to an all-women group. This pattern did not vary according to respondents’ gender. Further analyses reveal that the effect was concentrated among Islamists, which is consistent with some Islamists’ support for gender segregation. This finding encourages research examining women's political presence in conservative environments where gender segregation is common.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/637ADBEEC5CF76FF8A50B8FF70ADDCB2/S2049847020000370a.pdf/div-class-title-islam-gender-segregation-and-political-engagement-evidence-from-an-experiment-in-tunisia-div.pdf

Islam, gender segregation, and political engagement: evidence from an experiment in Tunisia

Although female political representation in the Arab world has nearly doubled in the last decade, little is known about how voters in the region view female politicians and their political platforms, particularly in a new democracy like Tunisia. We conduct original conjoint and vignette survey experiments to examine the effects of candidate gender and gender- and leadership-congruent political platforms on voter support. Building on role congruity theory, we find evidence of bias against female candidates among voters, particularly among respondents who hold patriarchal gender norms. Additionally, we find that all respondents are more likely to prefer candidates who emphasize security issues rather than women’s rights. Overall, our study suggests that female candidates who emphasize issues congruent with stereotypes of political leadership, such as security, can increase voter support, though respondents also reward male candidates who appeal to leadership congruent issues.

Marlette Jackson

Papers

Gender Stereotypes, Political Leadership, and Voting Behavior in Tunisia