%0 Report
        %A Baskaran, Thushyanthan
%A Hessami, Zohal
        %T Women in Political Bodies as Policymakers
        %D 2023
        %8 2023 Mar
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 15983
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp15983
        %X 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". 
        %K local councils
%K political selection
%K gender composition
%K child care