Does Female Incumbency Reduce Gender Bias in Elections? Evidence from Chile

Sarah Shair-Rosenfield, Magda Hinojosa

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

32 Scopus citations

Abstract

The incumbency advantage is typically thought to constrain female political representation, but can female incumbency provide a signal to parties that reduces strategic gender bias? We argue that once women prove they can win elections, parties will revise their strategic evaluations of their value as candidates. We test this using an original dataset of twenty-one Chilean elections between 1989 and 2012. We use a Heckman selection model to assess re-election rates by incumbent candidate gender, conditional on the re-nomination of incumbents. We find that female incumbents are just as likely to be re-nominated and re-elected as their male counterparts.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)837-850
Number of pages14
JournalPolitical Research Quarterly
Volume67
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 20 2014

Keywords

  • Chile
  • candidates
  • elections
  • gender
  • incumbency

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Sociology and Political Science

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