Representing Women’s Policy Preferences: Evidence from Canada

Existing research on the substantive representation of women suggests that women politicians are better equipped to represent women’s interests in political debate and decision-making. An important part of the ability to act on behalf of women, however, involves the ability to accurately understand women’s needs, preferences and priorities on a range of policy issues. In this study, we draw together theories of the substantive representation of women and perceptual accuracy to examine whether and to what extent shared gender improves the accuracy of politicians’ assessments of their constituents’ policy preferences. Using the results from a public opinion survey of 3900 respondents, we identify gender gaps in support for four municipal policy issues that are not explicitly gendered and estimate the level of support for each issue among men and women respondents. We then use a survey experiment of approximately 700 municipal politicians in Canada to test (1) whether politicians perceive gender differences in constituent policy preferences, and (2) whether women politicians are better at correctly identifying the policy women’s preferences. Findings from the study add to our understanding of whether and why descriptive representation might matter for substantive representation as well as factors that influence perceptual accuracy of constituent opinion.