Does Female Political Representation Affect Female Labor Force Participation? Causal Evidence from Japan, 2000-2015

• In Event: 4124 - Section on Race, Gender, and Class Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (100 min): Table 2. Work/Workplace

Abstract

Labor force participation has become a major dimension of gender inequality in contemporary Japan. This paper investigates the effect of electing females to the House of Representatives on female labor force participation in the corresponding single-member district from 2000 to 2015 in Japan. To address the endogeneity of electoral preferences, I use ballot position—a randomly assigned, yet electively important position on campaign poster boards—as an instrument for female political representation in an electoral district. Using the Census data of Japan, I find that an elected female politician can increase the ratio of female to male labor force participation rate by four percent in the corresponding district in the following months. Employing micro-macro multilevel estimates based on Japan General Social Surveys, this paper presents evidence that female politicians improve males’ recognition of female labor, rather than females’ self-recognition of employment as found in earlier studies.

Author

• Wenhao Jiang