Increasing Women's Descriptive Representation, But Which Women? Analyzing the Impact of Gender Quotas in Post-Industrial Democracies

Abstract

The number of countries that have adopted gender quotas has increased dramatically over the past two decades with over one hundred countries now having some form of quota to increase women’s political representation. The increase in gender quotas has led to a corresponding increase in research examining this phenomenon; however, this research tends to examine what leads to successful quota adoption and whether quotas are successfully increasing the total number of women elected to political office. While these questions are undoubtedly important, arguments in favor of adopting quotas argue that quotas will not only increase the total number of women, but increase the diversity among the types of women elected to political office. This research seeks to go beyond the existing literature and examine what kinds of women are elected through quotas. In order to examine the kinds of women elected through quotas this research will analyze the profiles of men and women in the lower house of parliament in four post-industrial democracies: Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The profiles of women members elected through quotas will be compared to women and men elected without the use of a quota to determine if quotas do change the kinds of women elected in terms of their age, race, government experience, occupation and education. Mapping these patterns can lead to a better understanding of whether and how quotas disrupt traditional candidate selection practices.