Replication Data for The Invincible Gender Gap in Political Ambition

Abstract: When we uncovered a large gender gap in political ambition in the early 2000s, our research highlighted how far the U.S. was from gender parity in politics. Given marked increases in women’s numeric representation throughout the last two decades, many might expect the gender gap in political ambition to have begun to close. Results from our new study of potential candidates, however, reveal that the magnitude of the gender gap is just as large 20 years later, and two primary explanations persist as well. We posit that even though candidate recruitment has propelled more women into electoral politics, patterns of traditional gender socialization persist. These dynamics, coupled with negative perceptions of how female candidates are treated, continue to depress women’s interest in elective office. As long as running for office is a more remote endeavor for women than men, women’s full political inclusion will remain a distant goal.摘要：早在21世纪初，我们在研究中发现了政治抱负层面的显著性别差距，该研究揭示了美国政坛距离性别平等仍有不小差距。近二十年来，女性在政坛的人数占比已有显著提升，因此不少人或许会认为，政治抱负层面的性别差距已有所缩小。然而，我们针对潜在候选人开展的最新研究结果显示，时隔二十年，该性别差距的程度仍未缩小，且目前仍存在两大核心解释。我们提出，尽管候选人遴选机制已推动更多女性投身选举政治，但传统性别社会化模式仍未改变。此类动态因素，再加上人们对女性候选人所受对待的负面观感，持续抑制着女性对公职竞选的兴趣。只要相较于男性，女性仍觉得竞选公职是更为遥不可及的事，女性的全面政治参与就仍将是一个遥远的目标。