Organizer: Indonesia Project, Australia National University

Type/Location: Hybrid / Canberra, Australia

Description:

Join the Indonesia Project at the Australia National University (ANU) for a talk by Dr. Nurina Merdikawati, Lecturer at the Indonesia Project, Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU. This seminar will examine whether electing female mayors increases women’s representation in district legislatures in Indonesia.

Abstract:

Women remain underrepresented in elected office across the world, yet it is still unclear whether female leadership generates spillovers to broader women’s political representation. This paper asks whether electing female mayors increases women’s representation in district legislatures in Indonesia. Using close mixed-gender mayoral elections between 2005 and 2018 in a regression discontinuity design, we estimate the causal effect of female mayoral victories on female political outcomes in the 2019 district legislative election. We find largely null effects. Female mayors do not increase the share of women elected to district legislatures. Turning to potential mechanisms, we find no evidence that political parties respond by nominating more women or placing them higher on ballots, and only weak evidence of a modest decline in voter support for female candidates. We consider two potential explanations for these null-to-negative effects. Female mayors perform no differently from their male counterparts on educational outcomes, closing off one pathway for positive demonstration effects. We also show that districts electing female mayors tend to hold stronger – not weaker – preferences for male political leadership. Taken together, our findings suggest that exposure to female executive leadership alone is not sufficient to expand women’s political representation, and that more targeted interventions are likely necessary.

About the Speaker:

Dr Nurina Merdikawati (Dika) is a Lecturer at the Indonesia Project, Crawford School of Public Policy. Dika is an applied microeconomist, and her primary research area is development economics, focusing on the economics of labour and gender. She has published a number of journal articles, book chapters, and books, such as in World Bank Economic Review and Journal of Development Studies. While her research primarily focuses on Indonesia, she has also conducted studies on Australia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

Registration:

To attend the event in person or virtually, please register here.