Who Cares Matters! How Social Capital and Female Bureaucrats Improve Health

• In Event: Representative Bureaucracy: New Directions and New Evidence

Abstract

The theory of representative bureaucracy (TRB) suggests as the public workforce becomes more representative of the public in terms of race/ethnicity or gender it is more likely that the interests of all groups will be considered during bureaucratic decision-making. Improved policy outcomes of traditionally under-represented groups is a common expectation of a representative bureaucracy. Though insightful, individuals are comprised of multiple social identities, which makes the focus on one social identity a major weakness in existing TRB research. I combine intersectionality, which emphasizes the importance of considering the effects of multiple overlapping social identities to offer a comprehensively understand social inequality, to TRB.

I posit that minority female bureaucrats and social capital, which captures the networks an individual has, are key in improving the health outcomes of minority women in the public and reducing health disparities between minority women and white women. There is significant disparity in health outcomes along race and gender as minority women often have higher preterm birth rates, maternity mortality rates, and infant mortality rates than white women. I combine TRB, intersectionality, and social capital research to offer an innovative theory that argues increases in female health bureaucrats and high stocks of social capital will improve the health of women (irrespective of race/ethnicity). Recognizing the importance of intersectionality, which argues a comprehensive understanding of inequality requires consideration for multiple social identities, I study the effects of minority female health bureaucrats (Black women and Latinas) and subgroup social capital on minority female health.

I rely on an original panel dataset with the race/ethnicity and gender of health bureaucrats and recently developed state-level measures of social capital from 2000 to 2012. While findings suggest high stocks of female social capital are important to the improved health of women, irrespective of race, the interaction of female social capital and bureaucratic representation is key to reducing health disparity between minority women and white women. Factors included in the analysis affect black women and Latinas differently, highlighting the importance of intersectional research that separates minority women from one another. The results of this paper also point to the importance of future research that examines the effects of minority female bureaucratic representation on different policy outcomes and the interactive effect of bureaucrats and social capital on health inequality in contexts outside of America.

Author

• Kenicia Wright, University of Central