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Democratic Party Control Reduces Gender Inequality
Author(s) -
Kuk John,
Hajnal Zoltan
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
legislative studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.728
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1939-9162
pISSN - 0362-9805
DOI - 10.1111/lsq.12316
Subject(s) - regression discontinuity design , unemployment , governor , politics , poverty , democracy , state (computer science) , economics , control (management) , inequality , labour economics , government (linguistics) , representation (politics) , demographic economics , economic inequality , political science , economic growth , law , medicine , mathematical analysis , linguistics , philosophy , physics , mathematics , management , pathology , algorithm , computer science , thermodynamics
Women earn less than men who work in the same job with the same level of experience. We know much about this gender wage gap but relatively little about its political or partisan sources. In this article, we examine the effects of party control of state government on gender inequality in income, wages, unemployment, and poverty. Employing both a regression discontinuity design and a dynamic difference‐in‐difference analysis, we find that electing a Democratic majority to the state house leads to substantial improvement in women's incomes, wages, and unemployment relative to men—especially in recent years. We also show that greater female representation in office and more liberal policymaking on policies related to women's rights could be driving that process. We find, however, fewer clear effects on poverty and less robust results for partisan control of the governor's office or the state senate. Parties and politics matter, but not always.