Replication Data for: Pipeline or Pipedream: Gender Balance Legislation’s Effect on Women’s Presence in State Government

Can legislation encouraging women's political involvement impact women's desire to run for elected office? Eleven states have passed legislation to promote equal gender representation on appointed government boards, and many argue this legislation will also develop a pipeline of women candidates to run for elected office. This paper is the first scholarly work to assess if gender balance legislation increases the number of women candidates and women legislators within a state. I use a nonparametric generalization of the difference-in-differences estimator and find very little evidence that gender balance legislation significantly impacts women’s representation at the state level. Results are consistent across multiple outcome variables and different model specifications, including two-way fixed effects, generalized synthetic control, and synthetic control models. The insignificant impact of gender balance legislation speaks to the need to thoroughly investigate which institutional reforms adequately feed the female candidate pipeline.

鼓励女性参政的立法能否影响女性参选公职的意愿？已有11个州通过了旨在推动任命制政府委员会性别平等代表权的立法，诸多观点认为此类立法同样能够培育女性候选人储备池，为参选公职做好铺垫。本文为首项评估性别平衡立法是否会提升一州内女性候选人数目与女性议员数量的学术研究。笔者采用双重差分（difference-in-differences）估计量的非参数推广形式开展分析，结果显示几乎没有证据表明性别平衡立法会对州级层面的女性代表性产生显著影响。该结论在多种结果变量与不同模型设定下均保持一致，涵盖双向固定效应模型、广义综合控制（generalized synthetic control）模型与综合控制（synthetic control）模型。性别平衡立法未产生显著影响这一结果，亦凸显出深入探究哪些制度改革能够切实为女性候选人储备池提供充足支撑的必要性。