How Women Access Electoral Office in India

• In Event: Women and Institutions

Abstract

Women are under-represented in parliaments around the world. Yet, women are also absent across political levels, and this feeds a vicious cycle that keeps women out of politics. In this paper I examine how female representation at the top reduces gender imbalance at the intermediary level of politics. I argue that this “representation from below” has consequences for the number of women who contest elections in the future and quality of the future female pipeline. I use data from a natural experiment in Delhi, candidate affidavits and structured interviews of male and female municipal councillors to highlight how men and women differ in their access to electoral politics and trace the process through which women become career politicians. The paper also sheds light on the institutional and social barriers women face when they access politics outside of the traditional pathway of political families.

Author

• Tanushree Goyal, Harvard University