Female Legislators and the Tipping Point for Female Centered Policy

The lack of female leaders in politics has long been associated with the under-representation of female preferences within the policy making process and vice versa. Today, women are being encouraged to pursue elected positions to influence diversity of policy, including childcare, healthcare, abortion, and welfare reform. These issues are considered particularly important to female politicians because they affect women disproportionately more than men. In his September 2013 research for the Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, “Welfare Reform in the United States: Does the Percentage of Female Legislators Affect Welfare Reform Policies?” Lee W. Payne finds that, as the percentage of female legislators increases, the likelihood of a state instituting welfare sanctions decreases.

Payne’s research focuses on the effects that increasing the number of female legislators has had on assistance programs for the underprivileged. In the last few decades, the American welfare system has under gone some drastic changes including the 1996 Personal Work and Opportunity Reconciliation Act, which instituted the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). In 2012, TANF provided assistance to over 4 million Americans with the federal government spending $16 billion per year while state and local entities spent an additional $14 billion on cash benefits, housing assistance, educational programs, and childcare. In 2005, women constituted between 8.8 percent (South Carolina) to 34 percent (Maryland) of state legislatures. Currently, Colorado has the highest number of female legislators, 41 percent despite the fact that women make up 51 percent of the general population in the United States. Researchers continue to speculate on the  institutional factors that influence the election of female legislators and these legislators’ effectiveness in implementing female policy preferences.

In his research Payne tested whether there is evidence of female legislators having issue-specific agendas different from those of their male counterparts. If so, high priority issues to women should become more prevalent as the number of female policymakers rises. Payne looked at how variables such as the percentage of female legislators in 2005, poverty rate, percent of African Americans, percent of Democrat legislators, and political culture affected the probability of state welfare sanctions (work requirements, family caps, and lifetime TANF limits) and the overall welfare environment. He found that increases in female legislators, Democrats, and growth of the state economy made welfare sanctions less likely. Surprisingly, an increase in female legislators also increased the likelihood of welfare family caps and lifetime limits being instituted.

Payne suggests that these results could indicate that female legislators do not want to encourage reckless behavior of welfare recipients like having more children and, instead, that they believe recipients should be working toward less dependency over time. Next, Payne evaluated the predicted probabilities of sanctions depending on the percentage of female legislatures. He discovered that as women politicians increase in a legislature – from the 2005 minimum (8.8 percent) to the maximum (34 percent) percentage – the probability of family cap and lifetime sanctions decrease by 28 percent and 14 percent, respectively. These results indicate that the number of female legislators within a state could affect the overall welfare environment. This may additionally suggest that there is a proportion at which female legislators band together and pass less strict sanctions.

Payne’s overall conclusion is in line with other research literature regarding female legislators and policy outcomes. However, he solidifies the idea that the effects of female legislators on policy issues can be tempered or enhanced by other factors such as political party and poverty rates.  One of the most important factors of this research is the evidence of behavioral patterns of minorities groups within state legislators. Payne concludes that female legislators adopt more male-oriented policy issues until the percentage of female officials increase to an influential tipping point. With the rise in gender quotas for politicians, it will be interesting to note if traditional female preferences and policy issues become more prominent as the percentage of active female policy makers expands in the future.

Article Source: Lee W. Payne, “Welfare Reform in the States: Does the Percentage of Female Legislators in State Legislatures Affect Welfare Reform Policies?” Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, September 2013.

Feature photo: cc/(kevin dooley)