Australian Parties, Not Voters, Drive Under-Representation of Women

Abstract

The Australian House of Representatives contains far fewer women than men. But is this because parties of left and right discriminate against women or because voters do? Using a new dataset comprising 7271 House candidates from 2001 to 2019, firstly, we find that the percentage of women candidates is increasing, but is consistently higher for parties of the left than the right. Secondly, women tend to be selected more by parties of both left and right in unsafe seats. Thirdly, all else being equal, voters reward women running for Labor with over 1400 votes more, are neutral towards those of the Liberals and Greens, but tend to penalise women standing for the Nationals. We conclude that, overall, it is parties, not voters, driving under-representation of women in Australia’s lower house.