Explaining Women’s parliamentary representation: Are there differences between democracies and autocracies?

Abstract

Do the same constituents trigger high women’s representation in democracies and autocracies? I try to address this research question with the help of a large-scale dataset containing the dependent variable women’s representation in national parliaments and six relevant independent variables—legally binding quotas, party quotas, the district magnitude, the years women have had parliamentary representation, development, workforce participation and a time trend—for 147 countries over a 25-year period. I find through cross-sectional time series analysis that the influence of the three institutional factors—legally binding quotas, and party quotas, as well as the district magnitude—differs between democracies and autocracies. Legally binding quotas have a somewhat larger influence in autocracies, whereas party quotas and a large district magnitude increase women’s representation more in democracies.