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Gender Quotas, Electoral Laws, and the Election of Women

Evidence From the Latin American Vanguard

Rice University, Houston, Texas

This study uses district-level data from national legislative elections in 19 Latin American countries to evaluate the effect of gender quota legislation, in concert with other electoral rules, on the election of women legislators. Well-designed quota legislation has a profound positive impact on the election of women, regardless of the type of party list (closed or open). Where quota legislation is in force, the use of closed lists on average results in a greater percentage of women legislators elected to office than does the use of open lists. However, this difference is not as great as would be expected based on the prevailing conventional wisdom and is primarily the consequence of the superiority of the closed-list systems when the number of seats a party wins in a district (party magnitude) is two. With one important exception, party magnitude is generally unrelated to women's electoral success in the region.

Key Words: electoral laws • gender quotas • Latin America • women's representation

This version was published on January 1, 2009

Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1, 56-81 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0010414008324993


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