The Impact of Gender Quotas on Votes for Women Candidates: Evidence from Italy

To increase the share of elected positions held by women, many countries have introduced gender quotas. To explore the impact of quotas on female political representation in Italy, we estimate a conditional multinomial logit for the probability of voting for different types of candidates. We utilize a data set which includes all the candidates to regional elections in four Italian regions in 1995 and 2000. The regional electoral systems allows voters to choose both the party and the specific candidate (open list proportional system). The results show that the introduction of a 50 percent gender quota in candidate lists leads to a substantial increase in the probability that voters choose a female candidate, from 12 to 36 percent. Nevertheless, the probability to vote for a woman (36 percent) is lower than the probability to vote for a man (64 percent). We conclude that voters have a gender bias in Italy. In addition, we find that both the district size and the position of the party in terms of liberal values have an effect on the probability of voting for a woman vs. a man. The more liberal the party is, the higher the probability that a woman receives votes.