Courtesy of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research May 2002

Does Women’s Representation in Elected

Office Lead to Women-Friendly Policy?

by Amy Caiazza, Ph.D.

As of spring 2002, women hold 13 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate and 60 of the 435 in the U.S. House. They make up just 22.4 percent of state legislatures and are just 5 of 50 governors across the country.  Currently, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranks the United States 52nd out of 179 countries in the world for its percentage of women in the national legislature (Congress). These numbers place the United States near the bottom of Western industrialized democracies.  In the United States, women’s unique experiences and shared concerns may be ignored in the policymaking process due to their underrepresentation in elected office. Having women in office could widen political debate to include a larger group of issues traditionally ignored by male policymakers. This Research-in-Brief analyzes whether having more women in elected office is, in fact, associated with more women-friendly policy in the United States. It does so by examining whether variations in women’s levels of elected representation coincide with trends in women-friendly policy across the 50 states, based on an evaluation of data from IWPR’s work on The Status of Women in the States.

Women’s Elected Representation Across the States

Women’s levels of elected representation vary widely across the 50 states. In some states, women make up almost half of all legislators and fill one or more statewide elected offices: governor, lieutenant governor, or other executive positions. In other states, women make up less than 10 percent of the state legislature and fill virtually no high-level elected executive positions in the state. Most, of course, fall somewhere between these two extremes. Table 1 illustrates the differences among the states in women’s elected representation. In this table, states are ranked for their scores on a composite index of women in elected office. This analysis assesses the proportion and importance of offices held by women at four levels: state representatives, state senators, statewide elected executive officials (besides governors), and governors.1 Not surprisingly, states’ scores for women in elected office vary quite a bit. With the least representation for women, Mississippi scored 0.52, with women filling only 13.9 percent of seats in the state house of representatives, 5.8 percent of seats in the state senate, and no statewide elected offices in 1996. In contrast, Washington state earned a score of 2.96 for women

in elected office. Women comprised 38.8 percent of the state house of representatives and 40.8 percent of the state senate in Washington, and they held half of all statewide elected positions in the executive branch besides governor (only one state, New Jersey, had a female governor in 1996). Generally, states in the West and Northeast had the highest levels of women’s representation in 1996, while states in the Southeast had the lowest.

 Women-Friendly Policy Across the States

Within the United States, states have substantial and growing authority over many policies of concern to women… women’s presence in legislatures and other state-level elected offices is closely associated with better policy for women.  Two Institute for Women’s Policy Research women and their families, including those concerning violence against women; child support; welfare; employment; legal protection for lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women; and reproductive rights. By creating policies around these and many other issues, states can and have enacted a variety of provisions that protect and strengthen, or deteriorate, women’s resources and rights.  Of course, defining women-friendly policy can be controversial. Nonetheless, some sources provide useful guidelines about what women-friendly policies might entail at the state level. For example, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, which was unanimously adopted by representatives of 189 countries (including the United States) at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, outlines critical issues of concern to women and remaining obstacles to women’s advancement, including the need for policies that help prevent violence against women; promote women’s economic equality; alleviate poverty among women; improve their physical, mental, and reproductive health and well-being; and enhance their political power. Based on the Platform for Action, IWPR created a Women’s Resources and Rights Checklist of state policies that can be used to advance women’s status in these areas in the United States. These rights and resources fall under several categories: protection from violence, access to income support (through welfare and child support collection), women-friendly

employment protections, legislation protecting sexual minorities, and reproductive rights. For more information on IWPR reports or membership please call (202) 785-5100, or visit http://www.iwpr.org.