Race to the top: using experiments to understand gender bias towards female politicians

ABSTRACT

Gender balance in political representation is an important goal of governments. In this paper, we ask: Do voters judge female politicians less favourably than male politicians, when given an otherwise identical set of information about their backgrounds? We employ an innovative online experiment (N?=?1933) to measure Australians’ attitudes towards female politicians and examine a series of hypotheses. We find voters see female candidates as more capable and are more likely to vote for them, but they are less likely to expect them to win. Female candidates are seen as more capable in their military and healthcare roles, but gender is perceived to be a major barrier to a female candidate’s success. Women and those aligning with the Labor/Green parties are more supportive of a female candidate, but we find limited evidence that those aligning with the Liberal/Nationals are openly hostile to a female candidate.