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Women's Representation in National Legislatures: Developed and Developing CountriesAuthor(s): Richard E. MatlandReviewed work(s):Source: Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 109-125Published by: Comparative Legislative Research CenterStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/440217 .

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RICHARDE. MATLANDUniversityof Houston

W o m e n 's Representationin N a t i o n a l Legislatures:Developed a n d Developing C o u n t r i e s

Thisnoteexpandsresearchonrepresentation f womeninnational egislatures.Existing models are tested on newer data in advancedindustrializeddemocracies,and these models are thenappliedto a sampleof democracies ndevelopingcountries.There are striking differences across the two samples. While a proportionalrepresentation lectoralsystem,women's participationn the laborforce,the culturalstandingof women, and the country'slevel of developmentall have positive effectson female representationin OECD democracies, none of these variables have astatisticallysignificantandpositiveeffect in less developedcountries.Thesefindingsstrongly suggest the existence of a threshold.Only after that threshold is passeddoproportionalrepresentation, abor force participation,and cultural standing exertpositive influences on the representationof women.

Womenarepoorlyrepresentedn nationalegislatureshrough-outtheworld.TheInter-Parliamentarynion 1997)reportshatasofNovember1997only12.1% f therepresentativesnthe179existingnationalparliaments erewomen.Yetdespite hegeneralpictureofsignificant under-representation,here are exceptions and consider-able variation. Studiesconsideringthe causes of variationsin repre-sentationevels for womeninwesterndemocracies indfairlyconsistentresults.Variationsareexplainedbypoliticalfactors,especiallyelectoralinstitutions,by demographic ndsocioeconomic actors,andbyculturalvariables (Darcy, Welch, and Clark 1994; Norris 1985; Rule 1981,1987, 1994). This note retests this earlier work on later data to seewhether factors that were important n the early 1980s retain theirsignificance. It then moves on to whethertheories based on resultsfrom OECD (Organizationof Economic Cooperationand Develop-ment) countriesalso hold in less developed countries(LDCs) withstable democracies. Earlier analyses concentrated exclusively onadvanced industrializeddemocracies. This noteprovidesa useful testof the robustness of these findings by testing the theories in lessdevelopedcountries.LEGISLATIVESTUDIESQUARTERLY,XXIII, 1, February1998 109

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RichardE. MatlandWhile scholars of comparative politics regularly urge theinclusion of a broaderrange of countries in comparativeresearch,attainingthis goal often runs into problems.One is lack of data.Formanycountriesandlegislatures,data or desiredvariablesare not avail-able. I deal with this difficulty by using indirect measuresof somerelevantconcepts.A second obstacleis definingthe sampleof demo-cratic countries that should be included in the study. Countries thatmeet one standardmayfail a differentstandard. use anadjusted ndexof democracy developed from measures in the POLITYII data setcompiledby Ted Gurr Gurr,Jaggers,and Moore 1990).I adjusted he

originalindex,de-emphasizing tsheavy weightingon chief executivepowers andrecruitment,andplacing greaterweight on the breadthofpoliticalparticipationsee Matland 1994 for a detaileddescriptionofthe sampleselectionprocess). Using this adjusteddemocracyindex,Iidentified the 24 advanced ndustrializeddemocraciesand 16democ-racies in LDCs shown in Tables 1 and 2.The rest of the paperdiscusses the level of women's representa-tion across the countries in the sample, the relevant independentvariables,the regressionresultsfor industrializedand less developedcountries,andimplicationsof the findings.

Representation Levels in National LegislaturesTables1and2 show women'srepresentationevels in 1980, 1990,and 1997 for the nationallegislaturesof the 24 industrializeddemoc-racies and the 16 LDCs with democraticregimes.1The difference ofmeans between these two groups s statisticallysignificantfor all three

time periodsand indicates that the two samplesdiffer in meaningfulways. Inspectionof the data shows that the gapbetween the industri-alized democraciesand the democraticLDCs has widened over time.From 1980 to 1997,women havemadegains averaging10.9%acrossthe industrialized emocracies,while theaveragegainacrosstheLDCshas been a much more modest 5.1%.Amongthe industrializedcoun-tries,the Scandinavian ountriesareall clusteredat thetopof the chart.The biggest gain over the 17-yeartime period was 24.9% for NewZealand;8% of thatgain (from21.2% to 29.2%)occurred n October1996 as New Zealand held its first election under a mixed electoralsystem. Among the LDCs all the gains are modest, with Argentinabeinga stunningexception.InArgentina,a constitutionalamendmentrequiring he nominationof women to at least one-thirdof the viableseats has hada dramatic ffect on women'srepresentationJones1996).

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Women'sRepresentationTABLE 1Female Representation in the National Legislaturesof Advanced Industrial Democracies in 1980, 1990, and 1997

Country 1980 1990 1997 Change1980-1997Sweden 27.8 38.1 40.4 +12.6Norway 23.9 35.8 36.4 +12.5Denmark 23.5 33.0 33.5 +10.0Finland 26.0 31.5 33.5 + 7.5Netherlands 13.3 21.3 31.3 +18.0New Zealand 4.3 16.5 29.2 +24.9Austria 9.8 19.7 26.8 +17.0West Germanya 7.3 15.4 26.3 +19.0Iceland 5.0 20.6 25.4 +20.4Spain 5.4 14.6 21.4 +16.0Switzerland 10.5 14.0 21.0 +10.5Canada 5.0 13.3 20.6 +15.6Average 9.5 15.2 20.4 +10.9

Luxembourg 13.6 13.3 20.0 + 6.4UnitedKingdom 3.0 6.3 18.2 +15.2Australia 2.4 6.8 15.5 +13.1Portugal 6.8 7.6 13.0 + 6.2Belgium 7.5 8.5 12.0 + 4.5Ireland 4.1 7.8 12.0 + 7.9United States 3.7 6.2 11.7 + 8.0Italy 8.4 12.9 11.1 + 2.7France 4.3 6.9 10.9 + 6.6Israel 6.7 6.7 7.5 + 0.8Greece 3.3 5.3 6.3 + 3.0Japan 1.8 2.3 4.6 + 2.8a TheGerman otal from 1997 is for unifiedGermany, he 1980 and 1990 totalsare forthe FederalRepublicof Germany.Source: Data taken from Inter-ParliamentaryUnion Report #23, "Women inParliaments: 945-1995, A WorldStatisticalSurvey,"Geneva,Switzerland:PU, 1995and the IPU's world wide web site:http//:www.ipu.org.

Independent VariablesIndependent variables found to be significant in previous researchin advanced industrialized democracies fall into three categories:political/electoral institutions, cultural variables, and socioeconomicvariables.2

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RichardE. MatlandTABLE 2FemaleRepresentationn theNationalLegislaturesof Less Developed Countries n 1980, 1990, and 1997

Country 1980 1990 1997 Change1980-1997Argentina n.a. 6.3 27.6 n.a.CostaRica 7.0 12.3 15.8 + 8.8El Salvador 7.4 11.7 15.5 + 8.1Jamaica 10.0 5.0 11.7 + 1.7Colombia 5.0 8.5 11.0 + 6.0Peru 7.2 6.7 10.0 + 2.8Average 4.6 6.3 9.7 + 5.1Botswana 5.4 5.0 8.5 +3.1Malaysia 4.5 6.1 7.8 + 3.3Mauritius 4.3 7.1 7.6 + 3.3India 3.3 5.0 7.2 +3.9Uruguay n.a. 6.1 7.1 n.a.Brazil 1.0 5.6 6.2 +5.2Venezuela 3.0 10.0 5.9 + 2.9Malta 3.1 2.9 5.8 + 2.7Cyprus 0.0 1.8 5.4 + 5.4PapuaNew Guinea 2.8 0.0 1.8 - 1.0Source: Data taken from Inter-ParliamentaryUnion Report #23, "Women inParliaments: 945-1995, A WorldStatisticalSurvey,"Geneva,Switzerland:PU, 1995and from datain PARLINE,the IPU's parliamentary atabaseavailable at the IPU'sworld wide web site:http//www.ipu.org.

Political VariablesThe existence of a proportionalrepresentation PR) electoralsystem has been found to have a positive andstatisticallysignificanteffect on the percentageof MPs who are women (Norris 1985; Rule1981, 1987, 1994). The most important easonthatwomen fare betterunder PR systems relatesto party strategyin putting togethera slateof candidates.In single-memberdistrictsystems, partiesonly nomi-nate a single candidate,while in PRsystemsapartynominatesseveralcandidates.Becauseof the zerosumnatureof nominatingdecisions insingle-member districts, female candidates must compete againstexisting interestswithin the party hatarerepresentedby men. In PRsystems, the partyis muchmore conscious of balancingits ticket toattractsupport romdifferentconstituencies.A woman candidatecan

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Women'sRepresentationbe seen as a benefit to the ticketby attractingvoters, withouthavingthe significantcosts to intra-partypeace of requiringpowerful intra-party nterests epresented ymento stepaside.This loweropportunitycost also makes it morelikelythatpartieswill reactquicklyto anotherparty'sconscious promotionof women (MatlandandStudlar1996).Rule(1987) found one otherpoliticalvariable, he proportionofseats held by right-wing parties,also affected female representation.Right-wing partiesare expected to supportmore conservative andtraditionalvalues that discouragewomen's participation n politics.Rule's analysisof early 1980s datasupports his assertion.SocioeconomicFactors

Participation n the labor force has consistently been found tohave a significant,positiveeffect on women's level of political activity(Anderson 1975; Togeby 1994; Welch 1977). Increased levels ofactivism and political consciousness could easily result in demandsfor greaterrepresentationof women. Rule (1987) andNorris (1985)both foundwomen labor orceparticipation ateshad apositive effecton women's representation, lthoughonlyRule found this effect to bestatistically significant.Politicalactivism,besidesbeingpositivelyrelatedto work forceparticipation,also increases with level of education. In addition,becausemembersof the national egislaturearedisproportionately elleducated (Putnam 1976), increasing levels of university educationamongwomen shouldexpandthe pool of possiblewomen candidates(Darcy, Welch, andClark1994). Therefore,I expect a positive rela-tionship between the proportion of women with some universityeducationand women's representationn nationalparliaments.BothRule (1987) and Norris (1985) found such a relationship,but onlyRule foundthe effect to be statistically significant.3CulturalVariables

While many researchersemphasizethe importanceof politicalculture, developing good measures of cultural differences is quitedifficult.Norris used data from the 1977 Eurobarometero develop ameasureof politicalegalitarianism.She foundpoliticalegalitarianismpositivelyaffected theproportion f women inaparliament.Since thepresent data set includes several non-European countries,Eurobarometermeasures cannot be used. Instead,a culturalmeasureof women's standingin society was developed by factoranalysis of

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RichardE. Matlandthreemeasuresthatcomparewomen's standingwiththat of men. Themeasures used were the ratioof women's literacyto men's literacy,the ratio of women's labor force participation o men's labor forceparticipation, ndtheratioof universityeducatedwomen to universityeducatedmen.4I assumethatwhen women approachmen in levels ofliteracy,workforce participation,anduniversityeducation,these areall indicationsthat women's social standingis approaching hat ofmen. The more equal women's social standing,the more likely thatwomenareseenasmen's equalsinthepoliticalsphere,andthegreaterthe probability hey arerepresentednequalnumbers.Themeasure isconstructed so that the more positive the number, the greater theequalitybetweenmen andwomen.To this set of previouslyidentifiedvariablesI add one additionalvariable, level of development. Tables 1 and 2 show there are cleardifferencesbetween ndustrialized emocraciesandLDCs witha demo-cratic regime. Previous studies looking at OECDcountrieshave nottestedthe level of development.Significantvariationexists, neverthe-less, across these countries in developmentlevel, andthis may helpexplain variations in representation. As countries become moredeveloped,womenareincreasinglyntegratednto all spheresof publiclife; this should include representation in the national legislature(Christy1987).Severalprocessesthataccompanydevelopmentshouldincreasewomen's politicalresourcesand decreaseexistingbarriers opoliticalactivity.Development eadstoweakeningof traditional alues,decreasedfertilityrates, increasedurbanization,greatereducationaland labor force participation or women, and attitudinalchanges inperceptionsof the appropriate oles for women. Confirmatory actoranalysis is used to create a measureof developmentbased on threevariables: the literacy level in the country, an energy use measure(barrelsof oil equivalent),and a 1990 estimate of GDP adjustedforpurchasingpowerequivalence.5Note thatthisdevelopmental actor isdistinctfromthe culturalfactor. The developmentfactor looks at theabsolute level of development, while the cultural factor looks atwomen's position relativeto men's. The correlationbetween the twomeasures is .58, indicatingthe two arerelated,but thatthey do varyindependently.

Results for Industrialized DemocraciesI use the initial regression to test variables found statisticallysignificant in previous studies, plus level of development. Thisregression equationincludesanelectoralsystemvariable(this equals

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Women'sRepresentation1 if acountryhasaPRsystem,0 if the systemis majoritarian),6 ercentof parliamentaryeats held by right-wingparties,7he culturalfactorscore describedabove,thedevelopmentfactor score describedabove,women's laborforceparticipation ate,and thepercentof women withsome college education.8Except for the cultural and developmentfactors, I use the same measuresas used previously. The equationpresentedbelow reportsunstandardized egressioncoefficients andtheir standard rrors.Regressionfor 24 AdvancedIndustrializedDemocraciesDependentVariable:Female Percentof ParliamentFemale Percentof Parliament= -14.42 + 15.63*** (XI) + .36** (X2)(8.92) (3.13) (.14)

+ 4.41*(X3) + 1.20 (X4) -.24(X5) + .02 (X6)(2.12) (1.38) (.15) (.08)*** = significantat .01 level (2-tailed test).** = significantat .05 level (2-tailed test).

* = significantat .10 level (2-tailed test).AdjustedR2= .75StandardError= 5.17F= 12.29; Sig. F=.0000XI = ElectoralSystemX2 = Women'sLaborForceParticipationRateX3 = Women'sComparativeStanding,Culturally FactorVariable]X4 = Level of Development[FactorVariable]X5 = Percentof Adult Women with UniversityEducationX6 = Proportionof Seats Held by Right-WingParties

Formost variables heregressionanalysisprovidesa clearpicture.The electoral system has a powerful, statisticallysignificant,effect.The modelpredicts hatforindustrialized emocracies,changingfromamajoritariano a PRsystemwill result in a 15.6%jump nthe femaleproportionof the national egislature.Women's labor forceparticipa-tion ratesandthe cultural actoralso show noticeablepositive effectson women's representation. t is just as clear that the proportionofseatsheldby right-wingpartiesis unrelated o levels of female repre-sentation.The last twovariablesconsideredproducesomeuncertainty.Thevariablemeasuringproportion f women withuniversityeducationis close to being statistically significant (t = -1.60, p =. 13), despite thesmallnumberof cases. Onthe otherhand, he result s fairlyperplexing.

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RichardE. MatlandIt is in theoppositedirectionof previousfindingsandseemsto suggestthatas the numberof college educatedwomen increases,representa-tion decreases! Furtherinspection of the data reveals this result islargelycausedby extreme values for two cases, anddisappearswhenthese cases are removed.9 Given the variable is not statisticallysignificant,andwhatresults herearedependon extremecases, itseemsreasonable to assert that the proportionof universitywomen in thepopulationis not directlyrelatedto female representationn either apositive ornegative manner.The regressionalso shows that the direct effect of developmentis not significant. When we consider the indirect effects viadevelopment's influences on women's labor force participationandon the culturalstandingof women, however, level of developmentdoes influence women's representation.10n addition,when develop-ment is included nthe model withoutthe cultural actor, thas a strongstatisticallysignificanteffect. Women'sculturalstanding s obviouslyinfluencedbythe level of development,and the two of them in combi-nationdeserveto be included nthe model.Althoughall thesecountriesare considered ndustrializeddemocracies, hosecountrieswithhigherlevels of development have greaterproportionsof women in theirnationallegislatures.Thisreplicationreconfirmed he effect of threepreviouslyiden-tified factors:proportionalrepresentation,women's labor force par-ticipationrates,and culturalstanding.One additionalfactor, level ofdevelopment, is significant in differentiatingthis sample of OECDcountries.l1The next step is to apply this model to the developingdemocracies.

Modeling Women's Representation in Democraciesin Less Developed CountriesWomen's participationin politics in LDCs has been studiedrarely, and when it has, it has been largely throughsingle-countrystudies. An importantexception is Nelson and Chowdhury's(1994)Womenand Politics Worldwide.They consider much more thanrep-resentationnnational egislatures,buttheydo discuss factorsaffectingwomen's participation in formal political arenas. In drawingconclusionsfrom the 43 countries ncluded n theirstudy,they suggestthat political socialization to women's proper role in politics isimportant,but they also argue that political parties and women'sorganizationsengaged in interestarticulationdetermine he degreetowhich women participaten political life.

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Women'sRepresentationThe variables consideredfor the OECD democracies includesseveralthat shouldaffect women'srepresentationn LDCs with demo-craticregimes. The developmentvariable,the culturalvariable, andwomen's laborforceparticipation ate all tap important lements thatcan affect perceptions of women's proper role in society. Whilemeasuringhow individualpoliticalpartiesreact oademand orgreateraccess for women is not possible, it is possible to test whether theelectoralsystemvariable,whichwas seen as crucialbecause itchangedhow parties looked at nominating and electing women in OECDcountries,acts inthe samemanner n LDCs.Results fromrunning hemodeldevelopedin the firstpartof thepaperon 16 LDCs arepresentedbelow.12

Regressionfor 16 LesserDeveloped CountrieswithDemocraticSystemsDependentVariable:Female Percentof ParliamentFemalePercentof Parliament= 8.59** + 1.56 (X1) - .08 (X2)(3.38) (1.83) (.07)

+ 2.50** (X3) -2.54** (X4)(1.06) (.93)AdjustedR2= .37StandardError= 2.60F= 3.21; Sig. F=.06** significantatthe .05 level.X1 = ElectionSystemDummyX2 = Women'sLaborForceParticipationRatesX3 = Women'sComparativeStanding,Culturally FactorVariable]X4 = Level of Development[FactorVariable]

The resultsaresurprising.The coefficientsfordevelopment eveland women's laborforceparticipation renegative.The electoralsys-tem variable, which had such a substantialeffect in the developedcountries,has a coefficient ten times smallerand is not significant.Onlyonevariableappearso workasexpected:women's cultural tand-ing. This finding,however, is notrobust.Whileculturalstandingandlevel of developmentuse differentcomponents,they are, neverthe-less, correlatedat a fairly high level for such a small sample (.64).Thereis some danger hatthey have splitthe variances betweenthemwith all thepositive factorsloadingonthe culturalvariableand all thenegative factorsloadingon the developmentvariable.This suspicion

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RichardE. Matlandis borne out by furtheranalysis.Whendevelopmentis droppedfromtheequation,he cultural ariableplummets o lessthanhalfitsprevioussize andis no longersignificant b = .85, s.e. ofb = 1.09).If theculturalvariableis dropped romtheequation,developmentalso dropsto halfits former size and is no longer significant(b = -1.30, s.e. ofb = .90).In bothcases, when only one of the variablesis in the equation,noneof the variables is statisticallysignificantandtheF-testshows thatthemodel as a whole does not come close to explainingenoughvarianceto be statisticallysignificant.The initialevaluationmustbe that factorsinfluencingwomen'srepresentationnadvanced ndustrializeddemocraciesdo not workinthe same fashion in LDCs with democraticregimes. On reflection,there are two reasonswhy these results are not surprising.First,theresultsmay accuratelyreflect thatfemalerepresentations still so lowin LDCs that representationmay largely be determinedby idiosyn-craticconditionswithin hatcountryandnotbybroad orcesinfluencingall LDCs. Despite substantialvariationon the independentvariables,thedependentvariablefalls in averynarrowband.Onlytwo countriesin 1990 (Costa Rica andEl Salvador)are above 10%,and over halfthe sample is clustered between 5.0% and 6.7%. These legislaturesmaynot have enoughwomen inthemto exhibitanyconsistentidenti-fiable patternsacross countries.A second reason for the lack of identifiableeffects is that theindependentvariablesmay meansomething entirelydifferent in thisnew context. For example, in industrializedcountries women whopreviouslyworked in the home and have now moved into paidworkoutside the home are the primarycause of the increase in women'slaborforce participation Togeby 1994). Moving into the paid laborforce, often into low paying or public sector unionizedjobs, has aconsciousness raisingeffect on women's political participationandtheirpropensity o articulatepoliticaldemands.While women's laborforce participation atesarequitehigh in manyLDCs, this is largelydue to women's presence in subsistence-levelprimarysector work.This work is quite unlikely to have the same empowering and con-sciousnessraisingeffect. Laborforceparticipationdoes not meanthesame thing in these two worlds,andtherefore t is not surprising hatthe effects are different.Theinability o find othervariables hatdifferentiate mongthesecountries intensifiesthe suspicionthatidiosyncratic actorsuniquetoeachcountryareat the heartofvariations cross hese countries.Severalplausible variableswere tested, andnone exhibited a strong enoughinfluence on representation o meet even weak tests of significance.

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Women'sRepresentationAmong the variables tested were percentof seats won by left-wing(and right-wing)parties, level of urbanization, aborforce participa-tion adjustedby subtractingprimarysector jobs, party magnitude,numberof years since women gained the vote or were first elected,andpercentof population hat is Catholic.While some variablesshoweffects in the expected direction,all effects were quiteweak.Whilethe regressionfailed to show any meaningfulstatisticallysignificantresults,it still provides importantnformation.The failureof the electoralsystemvariable o haveaneffect is especially interest-ing. That ticket balancingoccurs in PR systems both makes logicalsense andis shown to work to women's favorinthe industrialdemoc-racies.The failureof the same mechanism to work in women's favorin LDCs suggests either demands for representationare not beingforwardedbywomen-perhaps becausetheyarepoliticallyinactive-or, within the parties,the perceivedcosts of nominatingwomen areso greatthatparties preferto runvirtuallyall-male slates rather hanrisk the wrathof the votersby nominatingwomen. Detailed studies ofindividual countriesareneededto investigatethese dynamics.The non-effect for the electoralsystemvariable is an importantexample of a more generalpoint. Comparative nstitutionalanalysisconcentrateson examininghow different institutionalarrangementscanprovideanadvantageordisadvantage o specific interests.Theseinstitutionaleffects, however, can occuronly if the inputs(demands)exist to take advantageof the institutionalarrangements.Otherwise,the institutionalarrangementmay not affect outcomes. An unspokenbehavioral component is almost always part of any institutionalargument.Here it is thatifforces interested nwomen'srepresentationare effectively organized, they will be more successful in achievingrepresentation when a PR electoral system is used rather than amajoritarian ystem.

ConclusionsThese resultsprovidetwo very distinctpictures.Factorsdrivingvariationsnrepresentationn thedevelopedworldareclearlyunderstood.These actorsaremuch ess clear nthedevelopingworld. n thedeveloped

world,the effects of economic,cultural,andpoliticalfactors identifiedinpreviousresearchwereconfirmed.Perhapsmoststriking s the enor-mous effect a proportional representationelectoral system has onrepresentation.nthedevelopingworld,however,none of thevariablesfound significant among advanced industrializeddemocracies, norseveral otherplausiblevariables,were found to have an effect.

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RichardE. MatlandBased on these results there appearsto be a threshold;a mini-mum developmentlevel is needed to createthe foundationfor othervariablesto have an effect. Below thatlevel, the variables thatassistwomen in gaining representationnmoredevelopedcountriessimplyhave no effect. Itappears hat inmostLDCs,the forcesaligned againstfemale politicalactivityare so greatas to permitonly tokenrepresen-tation. As development increases, however, more women start toacquire heresourcesneededto becomepoliticallyrelevant,resourcessuchas education,salaried aborforceexperience,andtraining n theprofessions that dominate politics (such as law). This leads to the

formationof a critical mass. When the number of women with thenecessary resourcesbecomes substantial, he opportunityfor effec-tive interestarticulationexists. Developmentis a crucialpartof thisprocess.The second partof the story is that differentpolitical systemsprovide differentlevels of success afterthe critical mass is reached.Whilehaving he resourcess an essentialcondition,clearly hepoliticalsystem plays a significantrole. For a varietyof reasons,the electoralopportunity tructuren proportional epresentation ystems providesgreateraccess to women than majoritarian ystems. When develop-ment levels arelow, these structuresare eithernotused, oradditionalbarriersblock their effective use. As developmentoccurs, however,women are morelikelyto see significantincreasesintheirrepresenta-tion inpolities that use aproportional epresentation lectoralsystem.Considerableworkremains o be done.Fordevelopingcountries,case studies,especiallyof countrieswhererepresentation asreachedmoderatelyhighlevels,would bevaluable ools inuncoveringrelevantvariables hataffectrepresentation crossLDCs.Studying he strengthand actionsof women's organizations nvolvedin interestarticulationin these countries would be especially useful, to see if they hold thekey to variations nrepresentation.Foradvanced ndustrialized oun-tries, individualcountrystudies may help us discover how politicalvariables interactwith environmental actors to increaserepresenta-tion. As time passes, existing countries will develop, andchanges inrepresentationwill occur.Thenumberof new democracieshas showna promising upwardtrend. As new databecome available, they willprovideopportunitieso retest andexpanduponthese findings.

Richard E. Matlandis Associate Professor of Political Science,Universityof Houston, Houston, Texas 77204-3474.

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Women'sRepresentationNOTES

The authorwould like to thankNATO for an Advanced ResearchFellowshipunder The Studyof DemocraticInstitutionsProgram,andthe Universityof Houstonfor an LGIA grantthat helped supportthis research.The author would also like tothank ChristinePintatof the Inter-Parliamentarynion, DeborahOrth,andPhilipA.Michelbachfor their assistanceand commentson earlierversionsof this paper.1. If the national egislature s bicameral, he representation umber s for thelowerhouse.2. While currentdataon the dependentvariable(female percentof nationalparliament) s readily available,currentdata for the independentvariables is moredifficult to procure.Especiallyfor measuresbasedon nationaleconomic and demo-graphicstatistics,there tendsto be a lag of severalyears.To insuredata exist for allvariables at the same time, the regressionspresentedare based on 1990 data, i.e.,wheneverpossibledata or boththeindependent nddependentvariablewerecollectedfor 1990, or as close to 1990 as possible.3. There is one additionaleconomic variable hatcould be tested. Rule (1987)found the unemployment evel had a negative effect on female representation.Shearguedthat in countries with higher levels of unemploymentpeople would be lesswillingto turn o women aspolitical eaders. find the assertionof a connectionbetweenunemploymentand women's representation mplausible.No other study has foundthis connection,and Rule herself in a laterstudy (1994) finds no effect forunemploy-ment. When tested using these data,the effect of unemploymentwas in the wrongdirection(positive) and not statistically significant.Unemploymentis therefore notincludedin the model.4. Using confirmatoryactoranalysis,one factorwas extractedwith aneigen-value of 1.66. The loadingswere .73 for the comparative iteracyfactor, .82 for thecomparative aborforce participation actor,and .67 for the comparativeuniversityeducationratios.Eventhoughtheculturalvariable s builtpartiallyusingthewomen'slabor force participation ate,which is includedas an independentvariable,the twomeasuresareclearlydistinct.Theymeasuredifferentconceptsthatvaryindependently.Forexample, Israel'swomen's labor force participation ateof 47.7% is well belowthe industrializedcountry'smean of 58.9%. Israel is also low, however, on men'slaborforceparticipation o thatthe ratioof femaleto male labor orceparticipations.70,almostequivalentotheadvancedndustrialized ountries'meanof .71. The culturalmeasuredoes correlatewithwomen's laborforceparticipation t the .76 level, whichis higher handesirable.Thegreatestproblemwithmulticollinearity,owever, s inflatedstandard rrors hatmaylead to a falsenegative.Inthiscase both variables urn outtobe statisticallysignificant.Forthose who areespecially suspicious of the dangersofmulticollinearity, builta two-factormodel of cultureusing just literacyandcollegeeducationratios; his variablecorrelateswithwomen's labor orceparticipation t the.52 level. The resultsof those regressionsareavailablefrom the author,butthey areextremelyclose to those shown in the regressionused in the paper.5. Thevariablesall loadon one factor,with aneigenvalueof 2.27. Theloadingsare .85 for literacy, .83 for energy consumption,and .93 for GDP. Data on literacycome fromUNESCO's StatisticalYearbook,while estimatesof energyuse andGDParebasedon the C.I.A. World Factbook(1992, 1993).

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Richard E. Matland6. There are four countries that do not fit neatly into the proportional/majoritarianichotomy.Ireland ndMaltahavesingletransferable ote (STV)systems,

while Japanhas a single nontransferable ote (SNTV) system. In Germany,half therepresentatives re electedvia a PR systembased on the Lander,andhalf are electedfrom single-memberdistricts. STV has a numberof characteristics f a proportionalrepresentation ystem, and clearly looks more like a PR system thana majoritariansystem,therefore relandandMaltaarecodedas .7. InJapan,votershaveonly a singlevote and it may notbe transferred,his meansthat candidates rom the samepartyareeffectively in competitionwitheach other. SNTVtends to act more like a majoritariansystem, althoughnot entirely.ThereforeJapan s coded as .3. Germany,which hashalf of its seatselected undereachsystem, is coded .5. This coding is consistentwiththedescriptionsof thesesystems providedby theInter-Parliamentarynion(1993) inElectoralSystems:A WorldwideComparative tudy.Thisis thesource ordeterminingeachcountry'selectoralsystem.7. To determine he percentageof seatsheldby right-wingparties,parliamen-taryelection resultswerecompiledfrom theyearly reports n theEuropeanJournalofPolitical Research Mackie1988, 1989, 1991, 1992).To determinewhichparties houldbe labeledas right wing, work done by Laver and Hunt(1992), Huber andInglehart(1995), andWagschal 1996) was consulted.Laverand HuntandHuberandInglehartpresentexpertestimationsof left/right placementof partieswithin individualcoun-tries, while Wagschaluses the Laverand Hunt resultson the four most importantpolicy fields to establisha parties'positionon a left/rightscale. Wagschalalso showsthatthereis a highcorrelationbetweenplacementsbasedon expertopinionsandthosebased on readingof party platformsand manifestos (Klingemann,Hofferbert,andBudge 1994).8. The datafor the economic variables,specifically labor force participationrates ormenandwomenandunemploymentatescomes from he International abourOrganisation's 1993, 1994, 1995) YearbookofLabourStatistics.Thedataon educa-tion levels andon literacyrates for menandwomen used in the cultural actorcomesfromUNESCO's(1992, 1994, 1995) StatisticalYearbook.9. The average proportionof the adultfemale populationwith some collegeeducation, orthe24 industrializedemocracies,s 10.6%.Halfof the values liebetween4.8%and 10%.Thereare, however,two outliersabove20%.Theyare Israelat20.9%andthe UnitedStatesat 43.2%.Botharebelow averageon representation, et no oneseriouslysuggests his is becauseof theirhigh proportion f university-educatedomen.Whenbothcountriesaredroppedandthe regressionrerun, he variablehas a positiveeffect, althoughit is not statisticallysignificant.10. At this point, the dataanalysisstartsrunningup againstthe limitationsofthedataset. It is possibleto model indirecteffectsvia eitherpathanalysisorstructuralequationmodeling.Runningpathanalyses,andthenusingtheunstandardizedoeffi-cients to estimatethe directand indirecteffects, revealsthatthe indirecteffects aremorethan wice aslargeas the directeffects.Theproblem s thatpathanalysisassumeserrorermsareuncorrelatedcrossvariablesandequations.Thisis anextremelydubiousassertionin this case. The normal solution to this problemis to runa nonrecursivestructuralequationsmodel. Accurate estimationof such a model, however, wouldrequire armorecases thanareavailable.Theupshotis limited confidencein the onlyestimatesthatcanbe made.While I amnot ableto come upwith anexact estimate,it

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Women'sRepresentationis clear there are significantindirect effects of developmenton representation,andwhen combinedwith the directeffects, developmentlevel should be included in themodel.11. Two othervariableswere tested. Turnoverperelection andpartymagnitude(a variant of districtmagnitude).Neither variable showed anythingapproachingastatisticallysignificanteffect. This is somewhatsurprising ince both variableshavebeen identified n individual ountry tudiesasbeingimportantAndersonandThorson1984;DarcyandBeckwith1991;Darcy,Welch,andClark1994;Jones 1997;Matland1993, 1995; MatlandandTaylor 1997). It would appear hat these variables can besignificant,but heydo nothave ageneralizedffectacrossallpolities.Onlyunder ertaincontingenciesdo thesevariableshavea significantaffect on women'srepresentation.12.Factorsunique o democratic egimes nLDCswere used to measureculturalstandinganddevelopment evels acrosstheLDCs.In the case of theculturalstandingof women, the variablesused for developingcountriesexclusively emphasizeeduca-tion. Forthe less developedcountries heproportion f eligiblegirlsto eligibleboys insecondaryeducationwas included,along with comparative iteracyratesand com-parativeevels of universityeducation.This factorhas aneigenvalueof 2.27 andfactorloadingsof .93 for literacy, 84 forsecondaryeducation,and.84 foruniversityeduca-tion. Fordevelopment, he same measureswere usedashadbeen usedfor the advancedindustrializeddemocracies, .e. energyuse,totalliteracy,andGrossDomesticProductin 1990. This factorproduceda single factorwith aneigenvalueof 2.06 andloadingsof .88 on energyuse, .87 on GDP,and .73 for literacy.

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