Bias at the Ballot Box? Testing Whether Candidates' Gender Affects Their Vote

Using data from all elections to the Australian House of Representatives between 1903 and 2004, we examine the relationship between candidates’ gender and their share of the vote. We find that the vote share of female candidates is 0.6 percentage points smaller than that of male candidates (for major parties, the gap widens to 1½ percentage points), but find little evidence that the party preselection system is responsible for the voting bias against women. Over time, the gap between male and female candidates has shrunk considerably as a result of changes in social norms (as proxied by the gender pay gap and attitudinal data) and the share of female candidates running nationwide. We find little evidence that party-based affirmative action policies have reduced the gender penalty against female candidates.

本研究基于1903年至2004年间澳大利亚众议院（Australian House of Representatives）的全部选举数据，探讨候选人性别与其得票率之间的关联。研究结果显示，女性候选人的得票率较男性候选人低0.6个百分点；若仅纳入主要政党候选人，这一差距将扩大至1.5个百分点。不过，本研究未发现充分证据表明，政党预选机制是引发针对女性候选人投票偏见的诱因。随着时间推移，得益于社会规范的变革（以性别薪酬差距与态度调查数据作为代理变量）以及全国范围内参选女性候选人占比的提升，男女候选人之间的得票率差距已大幅收窄。此外，本研究未发现足够证据表明，基于政党的平权行动政策能够缓解针对女性候选人的性别惩罚效应。