Historical Origins of the Gender Gap in Political Representation

• In Event: Advances in the Study of Gender Inequality in Politics

Abstract

Women are generally underrepresented in politics. Some explanations to this phenomenon emphasize cultural legacies; others focus on political and labor market institutions. We investigate the joint effect of culture and institutions on the political representation of women. To gain leverage on cultural traits, we focus on two prototypical historical family types: nuclear vs. stem families. In nuclear families, newly-weds started new households and women generally stayed at home, while in stem families the newly-weds stayed with in-laws, grandmothers did more housework, and young females were more likely to be in paid work. As a result of this higher female labor participation, women in stem families gained a more equal position relative to women in nuclear families. Our hypothesis is that in-household gender equality shapes attitudes about women’s active participation in politics. To estimate the causal effect of family types on female political representation, we apply an instrumental-variable strategy based on medieval inheritance laws, using historical and contemporary data for Spain. Our preliminary findings show that regions with a tradition of stem families elect more female councilors in local elections than areas where nuclear families prevailed. Then, we assess the role of cultural norms, labor market and political institutions (in particular, the adoption of gender quotas in party lists) in the evolution of the gender gap across municipalities with different historical family types during the democratic period (1977-2015). To conclude, we discuss the implications of our findings for theories of cultural persistence and change.

Authors

• Aina Gallego, Institut de Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals

• Didac Queralt, Yale University

• Ana Tur Prats