Harris Public Policy Professors Release a Working Paper on the Gender Gap

Harris Public Policy Professor Christopher Berry was featured in Politico discussing the findings of a new working paper recently co-authored with Harris Public Policy Professors Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Scott Ashworth. The paper explores the gender gap in U.S. politics and finds that, as well as voter discrimination and stereotyping, aversion is a strong explanatory factor as to why there are less women than men in U.S. Politics.

“There are fewer women in office [than men], and fewer women run for office. When they do run, they win just as often as men, and after they’re in office, they perform better. And what our paper is showing is you can’t explain those facts unless there’s voter bias,” says Berry.

“Women know that they’re going to face these hurdles [of sexism]. So they’re only going to run if they think they have a reasonable chance of overcoming them, which means they’re going to be more qualified. So you have this self-selected group of women who are from a higher end of the distribution than the men who run.”

Full coverage in Politico.

Further information available at "Beating Bias: Why Women Make Better Candidates and Members of Congress."