Gender and Inclusion in Deliberation: A Meta-Analysis

• In Event: Representativity, Inclusion and Legitimacy of Minipublics: Issues and Solutions

Abstract

Deliberation serves as a fundamental pillar in fostering a robust democracy, allowing citizens to actively listen, learn and engage with diverse perspectives. The crucial element of diversity, encompassing various genders, races and ethnicities and historically disadvantage groups, plays a pivotal role in enhancing fairness by mitigating prejudice and discrimination within deliberative bodies. Among a larger volume of research on diversity and in particular gender differences in deliberation, researchers find significant gender gaps in participation and inclusion. There are several qualitative studies on gender inequality in deliberation, but this topic is relatively understudied using advanced large-N statistical methods. Recent experimental work has begun to test gender gaps in deliberative settings and possible interventions which may lead to more equitable deliberations. In the first meta-analysis in this area, we pool the results of these experimental studies to better understand the relationship between deliberation and gender, and how it may be moderated by the rules of deliberation. The analysis of 10 studies of a rich quality yielded 579-point estimates. In this paper we focus not only on the magnitude of the effect sizes, but also on their direction and statistical significance. Aggregated results reveal a more nuanced picture regarding gender gaps in deliberation. Perhaps surprisingly, the aggregated effect size of gender across experiments is almost zero, showing only very small inequality in gender deliberation at a superficial level. However, our results provide strong confirmation that the decision rules can shape deliberation in favor of women in a small group discussion.

Authors

• Masood Gheasi, University of Southampton

• Jessica Cristina Smith, University of Southampton

• Matt Ryan, University of Southampton

• Rafael Mestre, University of Southampton