Multidimensional domestic gender inequality and the global diffusion of women’s ministries, 1975–2015

Abstract

Since the 1970s, many countries have passed policy and institutional reforms to promote gender equality and the wellbeing of women. The global diffusion of gender and women’s ministries constitutes a manifestation of this process. However, our understanding of the diffusion of this organizational form is very limited. To fill this gap, we examine the adoption of cabinet-level, women’s ministries worldwide, between 1975 and 2015. Our argument builds on the fact that, within a given country, gender (in)equality is heterogeneous across the economic, political and social domains, and that shifts in women’s descriptive political representation and feminization of the labor force hasten the adoption of these ministries. As women expand their formal political power, they are better able to foster the perception of a linked fate and promote the creation of women’s machineries. Moreover, rapid feminization of the labor force increases the opportunity costs of all forms of gender discrimination and improves women’s collective socio-political economic resources to act against all forms of discrimination. Commensurate with our argument, penalized maximum likelihood fixed-effects (PML-FE) models indicate that countries which observe faster increases in women’s presence in the political elite and feminization of the labor force are more likely to adopt a women’s ministry.