Women’s Legislative Representation, Value Change and Satisfaction with Democracy

• In Event: Gendered Attitudes and Women’s Interests

Abstract

Women’s descriptive representation in national legislatures is the subject of an extensive body of research. Though most often treated as a dependent variable, a growing number of studies examine the impact of women’s legislative representation on public opinion and political behavior, particularly on political participation, perceptions of corruption, and system support. This paper examines the impact of women’s descriptive representation in national legislatures on levels of satisfaction with democracy. It revisits this relationship with data from the World Values Surveys (1995-2014), and finds a somewhat more substantial and robust effect than have previous studies. Using a series of multi-level models for comparative longitudinal survey data, it proceeds to examine how this relationship has changed over time, and the extent to which broad-gauged value change and shifting gender attitudes have contributed to the greater emphasis citizens place on gender equity in their evaluations of the quality of democracy.

Author

• Nick Ruderman, Concordia University