Descriptive Representation of Women in US Municipalities

• In Event: Limits on Urban Inclusiveness: Representation and Historical Inequalities

Abstract

Though it is well established that women are underrepresented in elected office in the US, the discipline does not have a robust measure of how many women serve in elected office at the municipal level. This is likely due to the vast number of municipalities in the US (over 25,000) and the lack of a central data source on the gender of mayors and city councilors in these municipalities. Measuring this is important because it provides a better understanding of the level of descriptive representation that women enjoy at an important but often overlooked level of government in the US that also serves as a gateway to higher office. Thus, this descriptive enterprise can also help inform scholars about the leakiness of the pipeline to higher office for women. In this paper, we present a nearly comprehensive data from 2017 and 2021 on the gender of every mayor and city councilor in the US (around 150,000 officials in total). We also have a sample of elected municipal officials (about 25,000) from 2012 and 2014. Together, these data also show how the percent of women in elected office has changed over time and whether it correlates with changes we have seen at higher levels of government in the US

Author

• Adam Michael Dynes, Brigham Young University