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The Effects of Candidate Gender on Voting for Local Office in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Susan Welch  and
Donley T. Studlar
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Extract

There has been considerable controversy over the reasons why women hold less than 20 per cent of all local council offices in England. Using a simple model of the votes a candidate might be expected to receive, this Note uses data from the 1985 English non-metropolitan county council elections to shed light on the paucity of women in local elected office. Our analysis evaluates the following alternative explanations for the low proportions of women in local office:

1. Relatively few women are selected by parties to run for local office;

2. Parties tend to nominate their women candidates for unwinnable races;

3. Voters disproportionately vote against women candidates.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , April 1988 , pp. 273 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

1 Hills, Jill, ‘Women Local Councillors: A reply to Bristow’, Local Government Studies (01/02, 1982), 61–71Google Scholar; Hills, Jill, ‘Life-style Constraints on Formal Political Participation: Why So Few Women Local Councillors in Britain?’ Electoral Studies, 2 (1983), 39–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bristow, Stephen, ‘Women Councillors: An Explanation of the Under-representation of Women in Local Government’, Local Government Studies (05/06, 1980), 73–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See Hills, , ‘Women Local Councillors’; Bristow, ‘Women Councillors’.Google Scholar

3 Ranney, Austin, Pathways to Parliament (Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Kelley, J. and McAllister, I., ‘Ballot Paper Cues and the Vote in Australia and Britain: Alphabetic Voting, Sex, and Title’, Public Opinion Quarterly, 48 (1984), 452–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but see Rasmussen, Jorgen, ‘Female Career Patterns and Leadership Disabilities in Britain: The Crucial Role of Gatekeepers in Regulating Entry to the Political Elite’, Polity, 13 (1981), 600–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rasmussen, Jorgen, ‘The Electoral Costs of Being a Woman in the 1979 British General Election’, Comparative Politics, 15 (1983), 462–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rasmussen, Jorgen, ‘Women's Role in Contemporary British Politics: Impediments to Parliamentary Candidature’, Parliamentary Affairs, 36 (1983), 300–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vallance, Elizabeth, Women in the House (London: Athlone Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Hills, Jill, ‘Candidates: The Impact of Gender’, Parliamentary Affairs, 34 (1981), 221–8.Google Scholar

4 This argument has been put by Currell, Melvin, ‘The Recruitment of Women to the House of Commons’, paper delivered to the British Political Studies Association Conference, 1978Google Scholar; Hills, , ‘Britain’Google Scholar, in Lovenduski, Joni and Hills, Jill, eds, The Politics of the Second Electorate (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), pp. 8–32Google Scholar; Rasmussen, , ‘Female Career Patterns’Google Scholar; Rasmussen, , ‘Women's Role in Contemporary British Polities’Google Scholar. Contrary evidence from Labour party selectors in Scotland and the north of England is provided by Bochel, John and Denver, David, ‘Candidate Selection in the Labour Party: What the Selectors Seek’, British Journal of Political Science, 13 (1983), 45–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Studlar, Donley and Sigelman, Lee, ‘Special Elections: A Comparative Perspective’, British Jour nal of Political Science, 17 (1987), 247–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Studlar, Donley and Welch, Susan, ‘Explaining the Iron Law of Andrarchy: Voting for Women in Scottish Local Elections’, Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming.Google Scholar

6 Previous use of the model is found in Studlar, and Welch, , ‘Explaining the Iron Law’Google Scholar; and Welch, Susan, Ambrosius, Margery M., Clark, Janet and Darcy, Robert, ‘The Effect of Candidate Gender on Electoral Outcomes in State Legislative Races’, Western Political Quarterly, 38 (1985), 464–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Hills, , ‘Britain’, pp. 20–5Google Scholar; Vallance, Elizabeth, ‘Women Candidates in the 1983 General Election’, Parliamentary Affairs, 37 (1984), 301–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Studlar, and Welch, , ‘Explaining the Iron Law’.Google Scholar

9 Bristow, , ‘Women Councillors’, pp. 79–81.Google Scholar

10 Studlar, and Welch, , ‘Explaining the Iron Law’.Google Scholar

11 Railings, C. and Thrasher, M., The 1985 County Council Election Results in England: A Statistical Digest, 2 vols (Plymouth: Center for the Study of Local Elections, 1985).Google Scholar This article is part of a larger study of women in British local elections. Our analyses of the 1984 Scottish district elections has already been cited in fn. 5 above. In progress is an examination of the impact of multi-member versus single-member districts on women's electability in the 1983 English and Welsh district elections.

12 Railings, and Thrasher, , The 1985 County Council Election Results.Google Scholar

13 Brislow, , ‘Women Councillors’.Google Scholar

14 Voters' antagonism toward women candidates could conceivably be demonstrated by differential abstention. An examination of turnout showed no differences in turnout in contest with women candidates, with and without controls for the socio-economic status of the district, number of candidates and party of the candidates.

15 Studlar, and Welch, , ‘Explaining the Iron Law’.Google Scholar

16 Bristow, , ‘Women Councillors’, p. 84Google Scholar; Randall, Vicki, Women and Politics (New York: St Martin's Press, 1982), p. 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Darcy, Robert, Welch, Susan and Clark, Janet, Women: Elections and Representation (New York: Longman, 1987).Google Scholar