Limited Impact of Introducing Proportional Representation on Women's Representation: Insights from a Quasi-Experiment in Local Elections

Proportional representation electoral systems were long argued to increase the share of women, compared with majoritarian systems. However, recent studies provide strong evidence that, usually, less women are elected in open-list proportional representation than in closed-list proportional representation. In this study, we test whether open-list proportional representation is enough to increase the share of women in local legislative bodies. We examine a change from a first-past-the-post to an open-list proportional representation with gender quota in Polish municipality council elections. We exploit an arbitrary population threshold to use the difference-in-discontinuities and regression discontinuity designs and do not find sufficient evidence that this change affected women's representation. We find little evidence for any effect on higher council fragmentation that could have harmed women's chances, and, analysing simultaneously held regional elections, we find no effect of the reform on voter behaviour. We also show that women's representation in Poland has been increasing over the past two decades, regardless of the electoral system changes. Thus, even substantial electoral reforms may have relatively little effect on women's representation.