Support for Gender Quotas and the Role Model Effect in Australia

The percentage of women elected in the Australian Parliament is comparatively low. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (August 2016), Australia ranks in the 56th position in term of women’s representation with many established democracy doing better. This situation has led to a discussion in political parties and the media about the necessity of gender quotas or target to increase women’s representation. Using the 2016 Australian Election Study, the paper proposes to test support for different measures (legislative quotas, voluntary party quotas, and encouraging women to run for office) aiming at increasing women’s representation in Australian politics. More specifically, the influence of the role model effect—that is the presence of women in the political sphere—is investigated on support for the various measures. It is hypothesized that the presence of a women running in elections—as oppose to being already elected—should highlight the lack of women’s representation, leading to greater support for measures aiming at correcting this issue and to greater support for more coercive measures. On the other hand, citizens whom have experienced women representatives in their district should be less concerned with increasing women’s representation. This relationship, however, should vary according to gender and ideological preferences.