Breaking the Cabinet’s Glass Ceiling: The Gendered Effect of Political Experience in Presidential Democracies

Abstract

Do ministers face gender discrimination in their career paths after entering presidential cabinets? Departing from past studies, which find little evidence of gender discrimination in more established democracies in Europe and the Americas, we argue that political experience can have a gendered effect on cabinet careers in newer democracies outside the West. Using fixed effects and matching designs, we analyze original data on the careers of 1,374 ministers from all major presidential democracies in Asia. Investigating the patterns of “cabinet promotions,” where ministers transfer from their initial cabinet appointment to a higher-prestige post, we confirm the null direct effect of gender in this new context. However, we also find important gender differences based on political experience, which helps women’s upward mobility in cabinets more than men. The finding that pathways to higher office differ by gender adds to our understanding of women’s representation in society.