Replication Data for: Understanding the Impact of Electoral Systems on Women’s Representation

For some scholars, women’s legislative underrepresentation is, in part, explained by the choice of electoral system. The electoral system literature broadly concludes that proportional representation systems promote gender equality in comparison to other systems (e.g., Caul Kittelson and Schwindt Bayer 2012; Matland 1998; Matland and Studlar 1996; Salmond 2006; Schwindt-Bayer and Mishler 2005; Vengroff, Nyiria, and Fugiero 2003). Recent research on electoral system reform castsdoubt on the efficacy of institutions, finding that short-term changes in electoral systems do not necessarily lead to increased levels of women’s representation (Hinojosa and Franceschet 2012; Roberts, Seawright, and Cyr 2013). I argue that the expectation that electoral system reform will instantly increase women’s representation ignores the fact that electoral systems produce equilibria that often take time to reach. Using a dataset of 98 democratic countries between 1955 and 2012, I show that electoral systems have both long-term and short-term effects. However, the effects of electoral institutions are greatest over the long term.