How Global Standards Can Influence Public Support for Gender Quotas

• In Event: Using Surveys to Measure and Explore Gender

Abstract

Electoral gender quotas have improved women's political representation around the world. As with other types of affirmative action measures, however, quotas remain contentious: citizens may undervalue legislative gender equality or be uncertain about the practical consequences of quotas. Notably, past studies have shown that even among citizens who support more women in politics in principle, many oppose quotas because of (mistaken) fears these will produce less qualified women legislators and worsen democratic outcomes.

Drawing on this conference’s theme of democratic “reimagination”, our paper tests whether information about the positive effects of quotas in other countries can mitigate these concerns, based on two survey experiments in Japan. Japan is a valuable case: while gender quotas have hitherto been rare in most socioeconomic spheres, there has been renewed attention on the low share of women in elected office. As such, while most citizens may be uninformed about quotas, the salience of gender representation is reasonably high.

Our findings are threefold. First, our experimental results show that respondents’ preferences about ideal levels of legislative gender representation are difficult to change, even when shown the comparatively low share of women in Japanese politics. However, those who are informed that gender quotas have been adopted in most countries are 1) significantly more likely to support quotas, and 2) less likely to believe that quotas will produce unqualified women candidates. In other words, while it is not easy to change underlying attitudes about gender equality generally, we can shift attitudes to favor quotas as a specific policy intervention.

Second, we show that respondents are more influenced by the tangible, substantive benefits of gender quotas than by their positive impact on descriptive representation, although both can increase support. Specifically, treatment information that having more women legislators produces better childcare policies increases support for quotas more than cues that quotas will encourage more accomplished women to run for office.

Third, the treatment effects are strongest among those whom we may otherwise expect to be opposed: men more than women, conservatives more than progressives, and sexists more than non-sexists. While this is partially due to ceiling effects, our results suggest that opposition to gender quotas is based on misinformation, rather than deeply rooted fundamental values.

Our experiments suggest that disseminating accurate, international evidence can play a pivotal role in building domestic consensus on the value of gender quotas. Implementing such information campaigns is feasible, though widespread reach remains a challenge. Our paper concludes by examining the Japanese media's portrayal of women's underrepresentation and proposes ways to integrate global standards into these narratives.

Authors

• Tomoki Kaneko, Tohoku University

• Kenneth Mori McElwain, University of Tokyo

• Mari Miura, Sophia University