A presentation by Ari Ray, Early Career Fellow, Collegium Helveticum, ETH Zurich. This event is part of the Political Economy Lunch Seminar (PELS).
Can more women in office improve social class diversity in politics? Probing this question, I examine Italian archival data to test how an exogenous increase in the number of female policymakers can have downstream effects on legislature class composition. I evaluate a natural experiment in which some Italian municipalities temporarily introduced obligatory gender quotas on party lists. When in force, quotas benefited mainly lower middle- and working-class women and did not harm the political opportunities of working-class men. Improved intersectional gender-class representation is driven by increases in the legislature seat shares of locally organized parties, and higher rates of voter turnout. Results thus suggest that quota-induced salience of gender issues contributed to improving class diversity in Italian municipal politics via a shift in the party preference of the local median voter.
No prior registration required. If you have any questions, please reach out to Amanda Slater at slater[at]hertie-school[dot]org