The Differential Effort—and Effects—of Female Lobbyists

• In Event: US Lobbying as Individual and Group-Specific Practice

Abstract

Although a growing number of studies attend to the gender balance in the lobbying population, the overwhelming majority of this literature examines the differential career patterns of men and women in the lobbying industry (e.g., Strickland and Stauffer 2022; LaPira et al 2020). No research of which we are aware examines whether female lobbyists lobby in a different manner than male lobbyists, or are more or less effective than male lobbyists at affecting substantive policy outcomes. In this paper, we address both questions. We examine lobbying from the perspective of literature which shows female legislators put in greater effort than male legislators (e.g. Lazarus and Steigerwalt 2018). We hypothesize that, similarly, female lobbyists must try more times to end up with results equivalent to those enjoyed by male lobbyists. We generate a gender variable for all lobbyists since 1998 (based on the how commonly their first names are used as men’s or women’s names) and combine it with a measure of policy effectiveness to evaluate whether female lobbyists are less likely than male lobbyists to succeed the first time they try. In addition to this primary analysis, we uncover patterns in the issues female lobbyists work on which we compare to the issues female Members legislate on. Together these data allow us to estimate whether the reason female lobbyists are less likely to succeed in the short term is really a matter of the issues they choose to lobby on. Our findings have broad implications for the effectiveness of disadvantaged groups in achieving policy outcomes.

Authors

• Jeffrey Lazarus, Georgia State University

• Amy Melissa McKay, University of Exeter