Does Descriptive Representation Improve Citizen Well-Being?

• In Event: Representation and Direct Democracy in the US

Abstract

Does descriptive representation improve citizen well-being? Descriptive representatives—legislators who share an identity or lived experience with their constituents—have increased in legislatures in recent years. I argue that as the share of nonwhite, women, working-class, and LGBTQ+ representatives increases in a state legislature, citizen well-being metrics will improve. To test this expectation, I create a dataset pairing the identity composition of forty-nine state legislatures across thirty years (1990-2020) with dozens of identity-specific state well-being indicators. The independent variable includes the share of women, nonwhite, working-class, and LGBTQ+ legislators in a given state and term. I measure citizen well-being using a variety of social, economic, and health indicators, as well as a state-level democracy index. I theoretically and empirically consider a variety of mechanisms that may explain why descriptive representation is associated with policy outcomes. Preliminary findings suggest that the share of descriptive representatives in a state legislature is strongly and significantly associated with improved well-being across a variety of measures. The share of working-class lawmakers in a state legislature is most strongly related to improved well-being. The findings from this analysis speak to the relationship between lawmaking and the lived experiences of the electorate.

Author

• Jacob Michael Lollis, University of Virginia