Women are still underrepresented in local government, despite a woman running for president

Kamala Harris is the front-runner of one of the major parties in the presidential race. Some people have celebrated her candidacy in the hope that she will inspire voters enough to elect the first woman president.

But the glass ceiling that prevented Hillary Clinton from running for president in 2016 remains stable at other political levels across the country.

My research with Diana Da In Lee, Yamil Velez, and Chris Warshaw shows that women remain underrepresented among local officials in cities and counties in almost all political offices.

Like many other characteristics of public officials, such as occupation or race, the gender of elected officials influences the way they make policy. Research has shown that women, particularly working-class women, elected to state and federal offices in countries around the world make different decisions about spending. More women in elected office could be especially significant at the local level, where many of those state or federal spending decisions are actually made in detail.

Congress is notorious for having few women in office, but until now, researchers and the public knew very little about how women and diverse ethnic groups are represented outside of the federal government.

We collected data from city, county, and school district elections over the past three decades in all cities with at least 50,000 residents and in all counties with at least 75,000 residents in 2020. Using this data, we calculated what proportion of winning candidates were women and what proportion were men.

Our published research shows that the proportion of women among elected officials in county and city governments is lower than their proportion in the population.

The gap is particularly large between the percentage of women in the county population and the percentage of women in county office. While women make up just over half of the county population, they make up just over a quarter of the representatives who serve on county councils or county commissions. Women are even less common in county administration, sheriffs, and district attorneys. The office of sheriff is particularly male-dominated, with women holding less than 5% of these positions.

The situation is somewhat better in terms of female representation in city government offices. Women are not well represented in the mayoral office – only 24% of mayors are women – and only a little over a third of elected city councillors are women. The relatively smaller gender gap among elected officials in city government is an improvement over the counties, but gender parity is far from achieved.

School boards are the only exception. In the school boards we studied, women are slightly overrepresented compared to men. This may be because school boards are what we political scientists call “stereotype-congruent” offices for women, who are viewed by voters as more competent in areas such as education and health.

Through a process researchers call “gendered political socialization,” people learn early in life to question women’s place in politics. Because of this, women are less likely to show interest in politics or run for office, and this lack of political ambition is evident early in childhood. Other research shows that in adulthood, gendered expectations for women to have successful careers in addition to motherhood can further limit their interest in running for office. Our research shows the consequences of these differences in ambition between men and women in politics: Women are underrepresented in almost all local political offices, with the exception of school boards.

As Kamala Harris faces off against Donald Trump in this fall’s presidential election, many pundits and voters are celebrating the representation of women – and particularly women of color – in politics. But no matter the outcome in November, the gender gap between city and county residents and their local elected officials will be large. As a result, important policies implemented by local governments may not fully reflect the desires of the population.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.