Research

Gender quota laws present a puzzle: they are designed to enhance gender equality in representative bodies, yet they are virtually always adopted by legislatures dominated by men whose careers may be affected by such reforms. Why do male-dominated chambers adopt quotas? We build on the literature on the internal and external determinants of quotas to offer a complementary explanation centered on legislators’ career incentives. We argue that in legislatures where parliamentary careers tend to be short, resistance to gender quotas is lower because such reforms pose less threat to legislators’ future in office. We formalize this logic in a theoretical model linking career expectations to strategic behavior on quota reform. Drawing on original data from sixteen Latin American lower chambers between 1988 and 2022, we test our claims using Event History Analysis and find that lower reelection rates lead to earlier adoption of gender quota laws. These findings highlight how political career shape the timing and likelihood of quota adoption and underscore the obstacles that men’s career expectations can pose to women’s representation.

Previous research has shown that expanding the party leadership selectorate to include party members increases the number of candidates and the competitiveness of the leadership elections and, overall, is seen as a legitimate procedure, increasing enthusiasm among voters. However, we do not know how party leadership election details (selectorate type, number of candidates, vote shares of candidates) affect voters' evaluations of a newly selected leader's deservingness, competency, effectiveness, and electoral viability. Using data collected from a conjoint experiment fielded in the UK in 2023 (Study 1) and data on twelve leadership elections across four UK parties between 2014-2022 combined with panel data from the British Election Study (Study 2), we show that membership elections, defeating a high number of candidates, and earning a higher vote share, especially in a crowded election, improve voter evaluations of the new leader along each of these dimensions. Thus, we conclude that newly elected leaders can best claim a mandate for their position if they decisively defeat a larger field of rivals in an inclusive election.

How did women’s access to formal employment affect the gender gap in policy preferences? Studies of the political economy of gender inequality argue that women became more supportive of the welfare state than men as they entered the workforce. However, we still lack causal evidence on the effect of outside-marriage options, such as simply being able to work, on the gender gap in support of welfare. This paper provides that evidence by studying the consequences of the end of the Marriage Bar in 1973, a widespread practice in twentieth-century Ireland requiring women to quit their jobs upon marriage.  A Difference-in-Differences analysis of public opinion data shows that, once the Bar was lifted, married women became less satisfied with their welfare benefits and time budget compared to married men, a signal of a growing divergence between their policy preferences and men's. These results align with explanations of gender gaps in attitudes based on household dynamics and help us better understand the causes of past and present differences between men and women’s policy preferences.