Voters in French local elections seem to discriminate against women running for public office – but only when a male/female pair of candidates is representing a right-wing political party. That is the central finding of new research by Jean Benoit Eymeoud and Paul Vertier, which explores the electoral effect of having the woman candidate of a pair appearing first on the ballot as determined by alphabetical order.

Their study shows that one factor plays a key role in whether there is gender discrimination: the level of information about the candidates and the election. Using diverse measures of access to information – such as newspaper circulation, and additional printed information on the ballot about candidates – the researchers find that discrimination is reduced when voters have access to more information, notably about the political experience of the candidates.

This suggests that the discrimination suffered by right-wing women candidates is of statistical nature. In other words, voters seem to discriminate because of negative stereotypes about women, something that disappears when their knowledge about the candidates improves.

More…

The under-representation of women in politics is a widely shared observation, but the reasons for this under-representation are still imperfectly understood and the subject of much debate.

Several hypotheses have been put forward in economic research: women might be less willing to engage in politics because of a lack of self-confidence or a harder trade-off between family balance and competitive environment; they may face higher obstacles from parties once they engage in politics; and they might suffer from voter discrimination bias. This study tests the last hypothesis.

A natural experiment: the 2015 departmental elections

In 2015, following an electoral reform, candidates for French departmental elections had to run in pairs composed of a man and a woman. An interesting feature of this election was that the order of appearance of the candidates on the ballot on election day was determined by alphabetical order. This arguably makes the order of appearance of male and female candidates on the ballot random.

• Imperfect understanding of election rules by some voters.
• Discriminatory behaviour of voters towards women.

Discrimination affected right-wing pairs of candidates

Comparing electoral performances of pairs of candidates across precincts, the researchers show that only right-wing pairs suffered from discrimination.

In fact, unlike candidates from other political parties, right-wing pairs with a woman in first position lost between 1 and 2 percentage points of vote shares compared to pairs of the same political affiliation but with a man in first position (that is, a decrease in the share of votes received of around 5%). They also saw their probability of going to the second round reduced by about 5%.

Information dampened discrimination

The study also shows that one factor plays a key role: the level of information about the candidates and the election. Using diverse measures of access to information (newspaper circulation, additional printed information on the ballot about candidates), the study shows that discrimination was reduced when voters had access to more information, notably about the political experience of the candidates.

This suggests that the discrimination suffered by right-wing women candidates was of statistical nature. In other words, voters seemed to discriminate because of negative stereotypes about women, something that disappeared when their knowledge about the candidates improved.

---

‘Gender biases: evidence from a natural experiment in French local elections’

Authors:

Jean Benoit Eymeoud (Sciences Po)

jeanbenoit.eymeoud@sciencespo.fr

Paul Vertier (Sciences Po)

paul.vertier@sciencespo.fr