This paper analyses the effect of a woman’s electoral victory on women’s subsequent political participation. Using the regression discontinuity afforded by close elections between women and men in India’s state elections, the study find that a woman winning office leads to a large and significant increase in the share of female candidates from major political parties in the subsequent election.
This stems mainly from an increased probability that previous women candidates contest again, an important margin in India where a substantial number of incumbents do not contest re-election. There is no significant entry of new female candidates, no change in female or male voter turnout and no spillover effects to neighbouring areas. Further analysis points to a reduction in party bias against women candidates as the main mechanism driving the observed increase in women’s candidacy.
Key findings:
- Using plausibly exogenous variation in women winning political office, a large and significant increase is identified in the subsequent share of women candidates fielded by major parties in Indian state elections. The increase arises mainly from an increased propensity for previous candidates to run for re-election, rather than the entry of new women candidates.
- Given that a substantial fraction of incumbents in Indian state elections do not re-run and female incumbents overall are less likely to re-run than male incumbents, this is an important result. There is however no significant increase in the probability that a woman wins the next election. Consistent with this, the estimated impact on women’s candidacy fades over time although a significant impact persists through two elections, which is a period of ten years.
- There are no significant spillovers to other constituencies in the same district, and no change in voter turnout amongst women or men. Testing the implications of a stylized model of candidate choice suggests that reduction in party bias against women is the primary driver of the increase in women’s candidacy following a woman’s electoral victory. The study finds little support for a reduction in voter bias or an increase in the supply of more qualified potential candidates.
- The results show how large and yet how local the power of a good example is. The novel and important new finding is that parties appear willing to change their priors with regard to the viability of women candidates after observing a woman win an election. However, we still know very little about internal party processes in developing country democracies, and how they are likely to react to policy measures such as gender quotas. The results also highlight that a “demonstration effect” is not enough: further economic, institutional or policy incentives are needed to stimulate entry of new women into the political arena and more widespread participation of women as voters. Both these directions are likely to be fruitful areas for future research.
