New ANU research explodes quota myth in politics

New research from Australian National University researchers Dr Katrine Beauregard and Dr Marija Taflaga provides unique insights into the effectiveness and limitations of party level quotes for improving women’s presentation in politics.

A new study by Dr Katrine Beauregard and Dr Marija Taflaga published in Parliamentary Affairs provides a unique insight into how party quotas work and identifies factors that may limit their success.

Debate about quotas tends invariably to be accompanied by debate about whether those chosen when quotas exist are qualified or simply chosen to make up the numbers.

“A really common argument against quotas is that they lead to the nomination and election of candidates that are not as good as you would have otherwise.” Says co-author Dr Beauregard. “So, we decided to look at candidate experience before and after the ALP adopted gender quotas and we did not find a decline in candidate experience after the adoption of quotas.”

By shaking up the selection process and making roles more competitive, quotas can work to enhance the quality of candidates of both genders.

“Our findings explode the myth of the so-called 'quota girls' - women who are only there because they needed to fill up the numbers.” says Dr Taflaga.

In contrast to some jurisdictions where quotas are legislated, they exist in Australia at a party level, introduced by the Australian Labor Party in 1994. And uniquely in Australia, there is comprehensive data going back to 1987 that provides a point of comparison for looking at the effect those quotas have had.

“What is so exciting about this research is we actually have this data, which doesn't exist anywhere else in the democratic world. What we find is that before quotas were adopted, women candidates in the Labor party were somewhat less experienced than male candidates, but after the adoption of quotas women and men candidates were very similar. That means women increased their levels of experience.” Says Dr Beauregard.

Since the introduction of those quotas, the ALP has increased women’s representation in the Party to 42%. The Coalition with women’s representation of around 20% does not use quotas, and over the same period the study authors did not find a similar change in experience in the ranks of its candidates. Both men and women who are candidates for the Liberal and National Parties bring very similar experience to the legislature.

“What we see is that Coalition women candidates are very high quality, but that they have basically always look like their male counterparts. This might be one of the reasons why we see fewer of them - it's just harder for women to achieve the same things as their male counterparts,” says Dr Taflaga.

While the new research explodes the myth about gender quotas, it also reveals the potential limitations of quotas and the complexity in to what extent they can affect change.

“What our research shows, is that how quotas operate is more complex than we might have been led to believe. Quotas themselves aren't a magic bullet. The environment in which they are introduced, how they are implemented and enforced has a big impact on outcomes.” Says Dr Taflaga. “Our research says to young women activists within their parties, that they need to nurture their own networks to see or maintain and improve upon organisational change. Our research also showed that to succeed, women were still being measured by a male benchmark - this is something for parties and their members to think about seriously, is it time to rethink and revisit what makes a good candidate?”

The full study is available here. 

Story by Adam Spence