U.S. women mayors: There's no glass ceiling...

In the three decades between 1970 and 2000, women's participation in U.S. mayoral elections increased from just about 0% to 33%.  That's a substantive increase, although it's not quite representative of the nation's female population (~52%).

Given this increase in women's participation in mayoral elections, Fernando Ferreira and Joseph Gyourko have inquired into the policy and political consequences of electing female mayors.

In contrast to most research inquiring into the influence of female leadership, Ferreira and Gyourko found no effect a mayor's gender on policy outcomes related to the size of local government, the composition of municipal spending and employment, or crime rates.  However, female mayors did appear to possess a higher number of unobserved political skills, with women mayors enjoying a 6%-7% higher incumbent effect than their male counterparts.

What about "spillover effects" for other female candidates?

Ferreira and Gyourko found no evidence of political spillovers, namely, electing a female mayor does not appear to change the long-run political success of other female mayoral candidates in their city or of female candidates in local congressional elections.

If The Motley Monk "gets it," there is gender equity and no "glass ceiling" when it comes to females running in mayoral elections, getting elected, governing, and getting re-elected. The good news is that maybe things aren't quite as bad as the radical feminists would have people believe!


Let the discussion begin...




To read the Ferreira and Gyourko study, click on the following link:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w17671