Empowering Women? Gender Quotas and Women’s Political Careers

Abstract

Women’s representation in executive office continues to lag behind that of their female peers in legislatures, and several studies find women face an executive glass ceiling. One way to shatter this executive glass ceiling is through the adoption of legislative gender quotas. However, scholars know little about how legislative quotas affect women’s access to executive office. Previous research has been unable to determine whether once elected through quotas, women advance to executive office at similar rates to men. Using data on the future career paths of nearly 2,000 Mexican legislators, I find women face a glass ceiling in winning nomination to executive office. Using career data before and after quota implementation, and exploiting lax enforcement in the district component of the mixed electoral system, I find quotas have done little to increase the advancement of women into executive office, although they have increased opportunities for women in other legislative positions.