TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Baskaran, Thushyanthan
AU  - Hessami, Zohal
        TI  - Women in Political Bodies as Policymakers
        PY  - 2023/Mar/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 15983
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp15983
        AB  - We investigate how female representation impacts policymaking using the example of child care and new hand-collected data on local council elections in Bavaria. RDD estimations (mixed-gender races for last party-specific council seats) show that an additional female councilor accelerates the expansion of public child care by 40%. We also document an important nonlinearity: an additional woman accelerates the expansion of child care only in councils with few women. Council meeting minutes reveal that women can be effective in councils despite being a non-pivotal minority because they change "the conversation". 
        KW  - local councils
KW  - political selection
KW  - gender composition
KW  - child care
        ER  -