Comparative Legislative Research Center

Women's Representation in National Legislatures: Developed and Developing Countries Author(s): Richard E.
Matland Reviewed work(s): Source: Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 109-125 Published by: Comparative Legislative Research Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/440217 . Accessed: 11/01/2013 01:28
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RICHARDE. MATLAND Universityof Houston
Women's
in
National
Representation Legislatures:
and
Developed
Developing
Countries
This note expandsresearchon representation of women in nationallegislatures. Existing models are tested on newer data in advanced industrializeddemocracies, andthese models arethen appliedto a sampleof democraciesin developing countries. There are striking differences across the two samples. While a proportional electoralsystem, women's participation in the laborforce, the cultural representation and the level of of women, country's development all have positive effects standing on female representation in OECD democracies, none of these variables have a statisticallysignificant and positive effect in less developed countries.These findings strongly suggest the existence of a threshold. Only after that threshold is passed do proportional representation,labor force participation,and cultural standing exert positive influences on the representationof women.
Womenarepoorlyrepresented in national legislatures throughUnion(1997)reports thatas of outtheworld.TheInter-Parliamentary in the 179existing November1997only 12.1% of therepresentatives were national women. Yet the parliaments despite generalpictureof
there are exceptions and considersignificant under-representation, able variation. Studies considering the causes of variations in representationlevels for women in westerndemocraciesfind fairlyconsistent areexplainedby politicalfactors,especiallyelectoral results.Variations andsocioeconomicfactors,andby cultural institutions, by demographic variables (Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994; Norris 1985; Rule 1981, 1987, 1994). This note retests this earlier work on later data to see whether factors that were importantin the early 1980s retain their significance. It then moves on to whether theories based on results from OECD (Organizationof Economic Cooperationand Development) countries also hold in less developed countries (LDCs) with stable democracies. Earlier analyses concentrated exclusively on advanced industrializeddemocracies.This note provides a useful test of the robustness of these findings by testing the theories in less developed countries.
LEGISLATIVESTUDIES QUARTERLY,XXIII, 1, February1998 109
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RichardE. Matland
While scholars of comparative politics regularly urge the inclusion of a broader range of countries in comparative research, attainingthis goal often runs into problems. One is lack of data. For manycountriesandlegislatures,datafor desiredvariablesarenot available. I deal with this difficulty by using indirect measures of some relevantconcepts. A second obstacle is defining the sample of democratic countries that should be included in the study. Countries that I use an adjustedindex meet one standard may fail a differentstandard. of democracy developed from measures in the POLITY II data set compiled by Ted Gurr(Gurr,Jaggers,andMoore 1990). I adjustedthe originalindex, de-emphasizingits heavy weighting on chief executive powers and recruitment,and placing greaterweight on the breadthof political participation(see Matland 1994 for a detailed descriptionof the sample selection process). Using this adjusteddemocracy index, I identifiedthe 24 advancedindustrializeddemocracies and 16 democracies in LDCs shown in Tables 1 and 2. The rest of the paperdiscusses the level of women's representation across the countries in the sample, the relevant independent variables, the regressionresults for industrializedand less developed countries, and implicationsof the findings. Representation Levels in National Legislatures Tables 1 and2 show women's representation levels in 1980, 1990, and 1997 for the nationallegislaturesof the 24 industrializeddemocracies and the 16 LDCs with democraticregimes.1The difference of means between these two groupsis statisticallysignificantfor all three time periods and indicates that the two samples differ in meaningful ways. Inspection of the data shows that the gap between the industrialized democraciesand the democraticLDCs has widened over time. From 1980 to 1997, women have made gains averaging 10.9%across the industrialized democracies,while the averagegain acrossthe LDCs has been a much more modest 5.1%. Among the industrializedcouncountriesareall clusteredat the top of the chart. tries,the Scandinavian The biggest gain over the 17-year time period was 24.9% for New Zealand;8% of that gain (from 21.2% to 29.2%) occurredin October 1996 as New Zealand held its first election under a mixed electoral system. Among the LDCs all the gains are modest, with Argentina being a stunningexception. In Argentina,a constitutionalamendment requiringthe nominationof women to at least one-thirdof the viable seatshas hada dramatic effect on women's representation (Jones 1996).
Women's Representation
TABLE 1 Female Representation in the National Legislatures of Advanced Industrial Democracies in 1980, 1990, and 1997
Country Sweden Norway Denmark Finland Netherlands New Zealand Austria West Germanya Iceland Spain Switzerland Canada Average Luxembourg United Kingdom Australia Portugal Belgium Ireland United States Italy France Israel Greece Japan 1980 27.8 23.9 23.5 26.0 13.3 4.3 9.8 7.3 5.0 5.4 10.5 5.0 9.5 13.6 3.0 2.4 6.8 7.5 4.1 3.7 8.4 4.3 6.7 3.3 1.8 1990 38.1 35.8 33.0 31.5 21.3 16.5 19.7 15.4 20.6 14.6 14.0 13.3 15.2 13.3 6.3 6.8 7.6 8.5 7.8 6.2 12.9 6.9 6.7 5.3 2.3 1997 40.4 36.4 33.5 33.5 31.3 29.2 26.8 26.3 25.4 21.4 21.0 20.6 20.4 20.0 18.2 15.5 13.0 12.0 12.0 11.7 11.1 10.9 7.5 6.3 4.6
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Change 1980-1997 +12.6 +12.5 +10.0 + 7.5 +18.0 +24.9 +17.0 +19.0 +20.4 +16.0 +10.5 +15.6 +10.9 + 6.4 +15.2 +13.1 + 6.2 + 4.5 + 7.9 + 8.0 + 2.7 + 6.6 + 0.8 + 3.0 + 2.8
a The Germantotal from 1997 is for unified
Germany,the 1980 and 1990 totals arefor the FederalRepublic of Germany. Source: Data taken from Inter-Parliamentary Union Report #23, "Women in Parliaments: IPU, 1995 1945-1995, A WorldStatisticalSurvey,"Geneva,Switzerland: and the IPU's world wide web site: http//:www.ipu.org.
Independent Variables Independent variables found to be significant in previous research in advanced industrialized democracies fall into three categories: political/electoral institutions, cultural variables, and socioeconomic variables.2
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RichardE. Matland TABLE 2 Female Representation in the National Legislatures of Less Developed Countriesin 1980, 1990, and 1997
Country Argentina Costa Rica El Salvador Jamaica Colombia Peru Average Botswana Malaysia Mauritius India Uruguay Brazil Venezuela Malta Cyprus PapuaNew Guinea
1980 n.a. 7.0 7.4 10.0 5.0 7.2 4.6 5.4 4.5 4.3 3.3 n.a. 1.0 3.0 3.1 0.0 2.8
1990 6.3 12.3 11.7 5.0 8.5 6.7 6.3 5.0 6.1 7.1 5.0 6.1 5.6 10.0 2.9 1.8 0.0
1997 27.6 15.8 15.5 11.7 11.0 10.0 9.7 8.5 7.8 7.6 7.2 7.1 6.2 5.9 5.8 5.4 1.8
Change 1980-1997 n.a. + 8.8 + 8.1 + 1.7 + 6.0 + 2.8 + 5.1 +3.1 + 3.3 + 3.3 +3.9 n.a. +5.2 + 2.9 + 2.7 + 5.4 - 1.0
Source: Data taken from Inter-Parliamentary Union Report #23, "Women in Parliaments: 1945-1995, A WorldStatisticalSurvey,"Geneva,Switzerland: IPU, 1995 and from data in PARLINE,the IPU's parliamentary databaseavailable at the IPU's world wide web site: http//www.ipu.org.
Political Variables The existence of a proportionalrepresentation(PR) electoral system has been found to have a positive and statistically significant effect on the percentageof MPs who are women (Norris 1985; Rule reasonthat women fare better 1981, 1987, 1994). The most important under PR systems relates to party strategyin puttingtogether a slate of candidates.In single-memberdistrict systems, parties only nominate a single candidate,while in PR systems a partynominatesseveral candidates.Because of the zero sum natureof nominatingdecisions in single-member districts, female candidates must compete against existing interestswithin the partythat are representedby men. In PR systems, the party is much more conscious of balancing its ticket to attractsupportfrom differentconstituencies.A woman candidatecan
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be seen as a benefit to the ticket by attractingvoters, without having the significant costs to intra-party peace of requiringpowerful intraby men to step aside. This loweropportunity partyinterestsrepresented cost also makes it more likely thatpartieswill reactquickly to another party's conscious promotionof women (Matlandand Studlar1996). Rule (1987) found one otherpolitical variable,the proportionof seats held by right-wingparties, also affected female representation. Right-wing parties are expected to support more conservative and traditionalvalues that discourage women's participationin politics. Rule's analysis of early 1980s data supportsthis assertion. Socioeconomic Factors Participationin the labor force has consistently been found to have a significant,positive effect on women's level of politicalactivity (Anderson 1975; Togeby 1994; Welch 1977). Increased levels of activism and political consciousness could easily result in demands for greaterrepresentationof women. Rule (1987) and Norris (1985) both found women laborforce participation rateshad a positive effect on women's representation, althoughonly Rule foundthis effect to be statisticallysignificant. Political activism, besides being positively relatedto work force participation, also increases with level of education. In addition, becausemembersof the nationallegislaturearedisproportionately well educated (Putnam 1976), increasing levels of university education among women should expandthe pool of possible women candidates (Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994). Therefore,I expect a positive relationship between the proportion of women with some university education and women's representationin national parliaments.Both Rule (1987) and Norris (1985) found such a relationship, but only Rule found the effect to be statistically significant.3 Cultural Variables While many researchersemphasize the importanceof political culture, developing good measures of cultural differences is quite to develop a difficult. Norris used data from the 1977 Eurobarometer measureof political egalitarianism.She foundpolitical egalitarianism of women in a parliament.Since the positively affected the proportion data set includes several non-European countries, present measurescannot be used. Instead,a culturalmeasure Eurobarometer of women's standing in society was developed by factor analysis of
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three measuresthat comparewomen's standingwith that of men. The measures used were the ratio of women's literacy to men's literacy, the ratio of women's labor force participationto men's labor force andthe ratioof universityeducatedwomen to university participation, educatedmen.4I assume thatwhen women approachmen in levels of literacy, work force participation,and university education,these are all indications that women's social standing is approachingthat of men. The more equal women's social standing,the more likely that women are seen as men's equals in the political sphere,andthe greater the probabilitythey are representedin equal numbers.The measure is constructed so that the more positive the number, the greater the equality between men and women. To this set of previously identifiedvariablesI add one additional variable, level of development. Tables 1 and 2 show there are clear differencesbetweenindustrialized democraciesandLDCswith a democratic regime. Previous studies looking at OECD countries have not tested the level of development.Significantvariationexists, nevertheless, across these countries in development level, and this may help explain variations in representation. As countries become more into all spheresof public developed,women are increasinglyintegrated life; this should include representation in the national legislature (Christy1987). Severalprocessesthataccompanydevelopmentshould increasewomen's political resourcesanddecrease existing barriersto values, politicalactivity.Developmentleadsto weakeningof traditional decreased fertility rates, increased urbanization,greatereducational and labor force participationfor women, and attitudinalchanges in roles for women. Confirmatoryfactor perceptionsof the appropriate analysis is used to create a measure of development based on three variables: the literacy level in the country, an energy use measure (barrelsof oil equivalent), and a 1990 estimate of GDP adjustedfor Note thatthis developmentalfactor is purchasingpower equivalence.5 distinct from the culturalfactor. The development factor looks at the absolute level of development, while the cultural factor looks at women's position relative to men's. The correlationbetween the two measures is .58, indicatingthe two are related, but that they do vary independently. Results for Industrialized Democracies I use the initial regression to test variables found statistically significant in previous studies, plus level of development. This regression equationincludes an electoral system variable (this equals
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1 if a countryhas a PR system, 0 if the system is majoritarian),6 percent of parliamentary seats held by right-wing parties,7the culturalfactor score describedabove, the developmentfactorscore describedabove, women's laborforce participation rate,andthe percentof women with some college education.8Except for the cultural and development factors, I use the same measures as used previously. The equation presented below reports unstandardizedregression coefficients and their standarderrors. Regressionfor 24 AdvancedIndustrializedDemocracies
DependentVariable:Female Percentof Parliament Female Percentof Parliament= -14.42 + 15.63*** (XI) + .36** (X2) (8.92) (3.13) (.14) + 4.41*(X3) + 1.20 (X4) -.24(X5) (2.12) (.15) (1.38) *** = significant at .01 level (2-tailed test). ** = significant at .05 level (2-tailed test). * = significant at .10 level (2-tailed test). AdjustedR2 = .75 Standard Error= 5.17 F= 12.29; Sig. F=.0000 XI = ElectoralSystem X2 = Women's LaborForce Participation Rate X3 = Women's ComparativeStanding,Culturally[FactorVariable] X4 = Level of Development [FactorVariable] X5 = Percentof Adult Womenwith University Education X6 = Proportionof Seats Held by Right-WingParties + .02 (X6) (.08)
Formostvariablesthe regressionanalysisprovidesa clearpicture. The electoral system has a powerful, statistically significant, effect. The model predictsthatfor industrialized democracies,changingfrom a majoritarian to a PR system will resultin a 15.6%jumpin the female proportionof the nationallegislature.Women's laborforce participation rates andthe culturalfactor also show noticeable positive effects on women's representation.It is just as clear that the proportionof seats held by right-wingpartiesis unrelatedto levels of female representation.The lasttwo variablesconsideredproducesome uncertainty. The variablemeasuringproportion of womenwith universityeducation smallnumberof cases. Onthe otherhand,the resultis fairlyperplexing.
is close to being statistically significant (t = -1.60, p =. 13), despite the
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It is in the oppositedirectionof previousfindings and seems to suggest that as the numberof college educatedwomen increases, representation decreases! Furtherinspection of the data reveals this result is largely caused by extreme values for two cases, and disappearswhen these cases are removed.9 Given the variable is not statistically significant,andwhatresultstherearedependon extremecases, it seems reasonable to assert that the proportionof university women in the population is not directly relatedto female representationin either a positive or negative manner. The regression also shows that the direct effect of development is not significant. When we consider the indirect effects via development's influences on women's labor force participationand on the cultural standing of women, however, level of development In addition,when developdoes influence women's representation.10 ment is includedin the model withoutthe culturalfactor,it has a strong statisticallysignificanteffect. Women's culturalstandingis obviously influencedby the level of development,andthe two of them in combinationdeserveto be includedin the model. Althoughall these countries are consideredindustrialized democracies,those countrieswith higher levels of development have greater proportionsof women in their national legislatures. This replicationreconfirmedthe effect of three previously identified factors: proportionalrepresentation,women's labor force participation rates, and culturalstanding.One additionalfactor, level of development, is significant in differentiatingthis sample of OECD countries.l1 The next step is to apply this model to the developing democracies. Modeling Women's Representation in Democracies in Less Developed Countries Women's participation in politics in LDCs has been studied rarely, and when it has, it has been largely through single-country studies. An importantexception is Nelson and Chowdhury's (1994) Womenand Politics Worldwide.They consider much more than representationin nationallegislatures,butthey do discuss factorsaffecting women's participation in formal political arenas. In drawing conclusions fromthe 43 countriesincludedin their study,they suggest that political socialization to women's proper role in politics is important, but they also argue that political parties and women's organizationsengaged in interestarticulationdeterminethe degree to which women participatein political life.
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The variables considered for the OECD democracies includes in LDCs with demoseveralthatshouldaffect women's representation cratic regimes. The development variable, the culturalvariable, and rate all tap important elements that women's laborforce participation can affect perceptions of women's proper role in society. While politicalpartiesreactto a demandfor greater measuringhow individual access for women is not possible, it is possible to test whether the electoralsystemvariable,whichwas seen as crucialbecause it changed how parties looked at nominating and electing women in OECD countries,acts in the same mannerin LDCs. Results from runningthe model developedin the firstpartof the paperon 16 LDCs arepresented
below.12
Regressionfor 16 Lesser Developed Countries with Democratic Systems

DependentVariable:Female Percentof Parliament = 8.59** + 1.56 (X1) - .08 (X2) Female Percentof Parliament (1.83) (.07) (3.38) + 2.50** (X3) -2.54** (X4) (1.06) (.93) AdjustedR2= .37 Error= 2.60 Standard F= 3.21; Sig. F=.06 ** significantat the .05 level. X1 = Election System Dummy Rates X2 = Women's LaborForce Participation X3 = Women's Comparative Standing,Culturally[FactorVariable] X4 = Level of Development [FactorVariable]
The coefficients for developmentlevel The resultsare surprising. arenegative. The electoral sysandwomen's laborforce participation tem variable, which had such a substantialeffect in the developed countries, has a coefficient ten times smaller and is not significant. to workas expected:women's culturalstandOnlyone variableappears ing. This finding, however, is not robust.While culturalstandingand level of development use different components, they are, nevertheless, correlatedat a fairly high level for such a small sample (.64). There is some dangerthatthey have split the variancesbetween them with all the positive factors loadingon the culturalvariableand all the negative factors loading on the developmentvariable. This suspicion
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is borne out by furtheranalysis. When development is droppedfrom variableplummetsto less thanhalf its previous the equation,the cultural size andis no longersignificant(b = .85, s.e. ofb = 1.09). If the cultural variable is droppedfrom the equation,developmentalso dropsto half its formersize and is no longer significant(b = -1.30, s.e. ofb = .90). In both cases, when only one of the variables is in the equation,none of the variablesis statisticallysignificantandthe F-test shows thatthe model as a whole does not come close to explaining enough variance to be statistically significant. The initial evaluationmust be that factors influencing women's representationin advancedindustrializeddemocraciesdo not work in the same fashion in LDCs with democratic regimes. On reflection, there are two reasons why these results are not surprising.First, the resultsmay accuratelyreflect thatfemale representation is still so low in LDCs that representationmay largely be determinedby idiosyncraticconditionswithinthatcountryandnotby broadforces influencing all LDCs. Despite substantialvariationon the independentvariables, the dependentvariablefalls in a very narrowband.Only two countries in 1990 (Costa Rica and El Salvador)are above 10%, and over half the sample is clustered between 5.0% and 6.7%. These legislatures may not have enough women in them to exhibit any consistent identifiable patternsacross countries. A second reason for the lack of identifiable effects is that the independentvariables may mean something entirely different in this new context. For example, in industrializedcountries women who previously worked in the home and have now moved into paid work outside the home are the primarycause of the increase in women's labor force participation(Togeby 1994). Moving into the paid labor force, often into low paying or public sector unionized jobs, has a consciousness raising effect on women's political participationand their propensityto articulatepolitical demands.While women's labor force participationrates are quite high in many LDCs, this is largely due to women's presence in subsistence-level primarysector work. This work is quite unlikely to have the same empowering and consciousness raising effect. Laborforce participation does not mean the same thing in these two worlds, and thereforeit is not surprisingthat the effects are different. The inabilityto find othervariablesthatdifferentiate amongthese countries intensifies the suspicion that idiosyncraticfactors uniqueto acrossthese countries.Several each countryareatthe heartof variations variables none exhibited a strong enough were and tested, plausible influence on representationto meet even weak tests of significance.
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Among the variables tested were percent of seats won by left-wing (and right-wing) parties, level of urbanization,labor force participation adjusted by subtractingprimary sector jobs, party magnitude, number of years since women gained the vote or were first elected, andpercentof populationthat is Catholic.While some variablesshow effects in the expected direction,all effects were quite weak. While the regressionfailed to show any meaningful statistically significant results, it still provides importantinformation.The failure of the electoral system variableto have an effect is especially interesting. That ticket balancing occurs in PR systems both makes logical sense and is shown to work to women's favor in the industrialdemocracies. The failure of the same mechanismto work in women's favor in LDCs suggests either demands for representationare not being forwarded by women-perhaps becausethey arepolitically inactiveor, within the parties,the perceived costs of nominatingwomen are so great that parties preferto runvirtually all-male slates ratherthan risk the wrathof the voters by nominatingwomen. Detailed studies of individualcountriesare needed to investigatethese dynamics. The non-effect for the electoral system variable is an important example of a more general point. Comparativeinstitutionalanalysis concentrateson examining how different institutionalarrangements can provide an advantageor disadvantageto specific interests.These institutionaleffects, however, can occur only if the inputs (demands) exist to take advantageof the institutionalarrangements. Otherwise, the institutionalarrangement may not affect outcomes. An unspoken behavioral component is almost always part of any institutional argument.Here it is thatifforces interestedin women'srepresentation are effectively organized, they will be more successful in achieving representation when a PR electoral system is used rather than a majoritarian system. Conclusions These results providetwo very distinctpictures.Factorsdriving variations in representation inthe developed worldareclearlyunderstood. world.Inthedeveloped Thesefactorsaremuchless clearinthedeveloping andpoliticalfactors identified world,the effects of economic,cultural, in previousresearchwere confirmed.Perhapsmost strikingis the enormous effect a proportionalrepresentationelectoral system has on In the developingworld,however,none of the variables representation. found significant among advanced industrializeddemocracies, nor several other plausible variables,were found to have an effect.
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Based on these results there appearsto be a threshold;a minimum development level is needed to create the foundation for other variables to have an effect. Below that level, the variables that assist in more developed countries simply women in gaining representation have no effect. It appearsthat in most LDCs, the forces aligned against female political activity are so greatas to permitonly token representation. As development increases, however, more women start to acquirethe resourcesneededto become politically relevant,resources such as education, salariedlaborforce experience, and trainingin the professions that dominate politics (such as law). This leads to the formation of a critical mass. When the number of women with the necessary resources becomes substantial,the opportunityfor effective interestarticulationexists. Development is a crucial part of this process. The second part of the story is that different political systems provide different levels of success after the critical mass is reached. Whilehavingthe resourcesis an essentialcondition,clearlythe political system plays a significant role. For a variety of reasons, the electoral representation systems provides opportunitystructurein proportional systems. When developgreateraccess to women than majoritarian ment levels are low, these structuresare eithernot used, or additional barriersblock their effective use. As development occurs, however, women are more likely to see significantincreasesin theirrepresentation in polities thatuse a proportional electoral system. representation Considerable workremainsto be done. For developingcountries, case studies, especially of countrieswhere representation has reached moderatelyhigh levels, would be valuabletools in uncoveringrelevant variablesthataffect representation acrossLDCs. Studyingthe strength and actions of women's organizationsinvolved in interestarticulation in these countries would be especially useful, to see if they hold the For advancedindustrializedcounkey to variationsin representation. tries, individual country studies may help us discover how political variables interactwith environmentalfactors to increase representation. As time passes, existing countrieswill develop, and changes in will occur. The numberof new democracieshas shown representation a promising upwardtrend. As new data become available, they will provide opportunitiesto retest and expandupon these findings. RichardE. Matland is Associate Professor of Political Science, Universityof Houston,Houston, Texas 77204-3474.
Women's Representation NOTES
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The authorwould like to thankNATO for an Advanced ResearchFellowship underThe Study of DemocraticInstitutionsProgram,and the University of Houston for an LGIA grant that helped supportthis research.The author would also like to thankChristinePintatof the Inter-Parliamentary Union, DeborahOrth,and Philip A. Michelbachfor their assistanceand commentson earlierversions of this paper. numberis for the 1. If the nationallegislatureis bicameral,the representation lower house. 2. While currentdata on the dependentvariable(female percent of national parliament)is readily available, currentdata for the independentvariables is more difficult to procure.Especially for measuresbased on national economic and demographic statistics, there tends to be a lag of several years. To insure data exist for all variables at the same time, the regressions presented are based on 1990 data, i.e., wheneverpossible datafor boththe independent anddependentvariablewere collected for 1990, or as close to 1990 as possible. 3. There is one additionaleconomic variablethat could be tested. Rule (1987) found the unemploymentlevel had a negative effect on female representation.She argued that in countries with higher levels of unemploymentpeople would be less willing to turnto womenas politicalleaders.I find the assertionof a connectionbetween unemploymentand women's representationimplausible.No other study has found this connection, and Rule herself in a laterstudy (1994) finds no effect for unemployment. When tested using these data, the effect of unemploymentwas in the wrong direction (positive) and not statistically significant. Unemployment is therefore not included in the model. 4. Using confirmatoryfactoranalysis, one factorwas extractedwith an eigenvalue of 1.66. The loadings were .73 for the comparativeliteracy factor, .82 for the comparativelabor force participationfactor, and .67 for the comparativeuniversity educationratios.Even thoughthe culturalvariableis builtpartiallyusing the women's labor force participationrate, which is included as an independentvariable, the two measuresareclearlydistinct.They measuredifferentconceptsthatvary independently. For example, Israel's women's labor force participationrate of 47.7% is well below the industrializedcountry's mean of 58.9%. Israel is also low, however, on men's so thatthe ratioof female to male laborforce participationis laborforce participation countries'meanof .71. The cultural to the advancedindustrialized .70, almostequivalent at the .76 level, which measuredoes correlatewith women's laborforce participation Thegreatestproblem with multicollinearity, is higherthandesirable. however,is inflated standarderrorsthat may lead to a false negative. In this case both variablesturnout to be statisticallysignificant. For those who are especially suspicious of the dangers of multicollinearity,I built a two-factormodel of cultureusing just literacyand college at the educationratios;this variablecorrelateswith women's laborforce participation .52 level. The results of those regressionsare available from the author,but they are extremely close to those shown in the regressionused in the paper. 5. The variablesall load on one factor,with an eigenvalueof 2.27. The loadings are .85 for literacy, .83 for energy consumption,and .93 for GDP. Data on literacy come from UNESCO's StatisticalYearbook,while estimatesof energy use and GDP are based on the C.I.A. World Factbook(1992, 1993).
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6. There are four countries that do not fit neatly into the proportional/ andMaltahave single transferable vote (STV) systems, dichotomy.Ireland majoritarian while Japanhas a single nontransferable vote (SNTV) system. In Germany,half the are elected via a PR system based on the Lander,and half are elected representatives of a proportional from single-memberdistricts.STV has a numberof characteristics representationsystem, and clearly looks more like a PR system than a majoritarian system, thereforeIrelandandMaltaarecoded as .7. In Japan,voters have only a single vote and it may not be transferred, this means that candidatesfrom the same partyare effectively in competitionwith each other.SNTV tends to act more like a majoritarian system, although not entirely. ThereforeJapanis coded as .3. Germany,which has half of its seats elected undereach system, is coded .5. This coding is consistent with the descriptionsof these systems providedby the Inter-Parliamentary Union (1993) in ElectoralSystems:A Worldwide Study.This is the sourcefor determining Comparative each country's electoralsystem. 7. To determinethe percentageof seats held by right-wingparties,parliamentaryelection resultswere compiled fromthe yearlyreportsin the EuropeanJournal of whichpartiesshould Political Research(Mackie1988, 1989, 1991, 1992).To determine be labeled as right wing, work done by Laver and Hunt (1992), Huber and Inglehart (1995), and Wagschal(1996) was consulted.LaverandHuntandHuberand Inglehart present expert estimationsof left/rightplacementof partieswithin individual countries, while Wagschal uses the Laver and Hunt results on the four most important policy fields to establisha parties'position on a left/rightscale. Wagschalalso shows betweenplacementsbasedon expertopinions andthose thatthere is a high correlation based on reading of party platforms and manifestos (Klingemann, Hofferbert,and Budge 1994). 8. The data for the economic variables,specifically labor force participation Labour ratescomes fromthe International ratesfor men andwomen andunemployment Organisation's(1993, 1994, 1995) Yearbookof LabourStatistics.The dataon education levels and on literacyrates for men and women used in the culturalfactor comes from UNESCO's (1992, 1994, 1995) Statistical Yearbook. 9. The average proportionof the adult female populationwith some college is 10.6%.Half of the valueslie between democracies, education,forthe 24 industrialized 4.8% and 10%.Thereare,however, two outliersabove 20%. They are Israelat 20.9% and the United States at 43.2%. Both are below averageon representation, yet no one women. of university-educated seriouslysuggeststhis is becauseof theirhigh proportion When both countriesare droppedandthe regressionrerun,the variablehas a positive effect, although it is not statisticallysignificant. 10. At this point, the data analysis startsrunningup against the limitationsof the dataset. It is possible to model indirecteffects via eitherpathanalysis or structural coeffiequationmodeling. Runningpathanalyses, and then using the unstandardized cients to estimate the direct and indirecteffects, reveals that the indirect effects are morethantwice as largeas the directeffects. The problemis thatpathanalysisassumes This is an extremelydubious acrossvariablesandequations. termsareuncorrelated error assertion in this case. The normal solution to this problem is to run a nonrecursive structuralequations model. Accurate estimation of such a model, however, would requirefar more cases thanareavailable.The upshotis limited confidence in the only estimatesthat can be made. While I am not able to come up with an exact estimate, it
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is clear there are significant indirecteffects of development on representation,and when combined with the directeffects, development level should be included in the model. 11. Two othervariableswere tested.Turnover perelection andpartymagnitude (a variant of district magnitude).Neither variable showed anything approachinga statisticallysignificant effect. This is somewhatsurprisingsince both variableshave been identifiedin individualcountrystudiesas being important (AndersonandThorson 1984; DarcyandBeckwith 1991;Darcy,Welch, andClark1994; Jones 1997;Matland 1993, 1995; Matlandand Taylor 1997). It would appearthat these variables can be buttheydo nothavea generalized effectacrossall polities.Onlyundercertain significant, contingenciesdo these variableshave a significantaffecton women's representation. 12. Factorsuniqueto democratic regimesin LDCs wereusedto measurecultural standingand developmentlevels acrossthe LDCs. In the case of the culturalstanding of women, the variablesused for developing countriesexclusively emphasizeeducation. For the less developedcountriesthe proportion of eligible girls to eligible boys in secondary education was included, along with comparativeliteracy rates and comparativelevels of universityeducation.This factorhas an eigenvalueof 2.27 andfactor loadings of .93 for literacy,.84 for secondaryeducation,and .84 for universityeducation. For development,the samemeasureswereused as hadbeen used for the advanced industrialized democracies,i.e. energyuse, total literacy,andGrossDomestic Product in 1990. This factorproduceda single factorwith an eigenvalue of 2.06 and loadings of .88 on energy use, .87 on GDP, and .73 for literacy.
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Women's Representation in National Legislatures: Developed and Developing Countries Author(s): Richard E.

RICHARDE. MATLAND Universityof Houston

a The Germantotal from 1997 is for unified

Regressionfor 16 Lesser Developed Countries with Democratic Systems

Women's Representation NOTES

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