More female cabinet ministers would benefit all women

There was a lot of cabinet reshuffling recently but moving ministerial deckchairs didn’t have huge repercussions for the representation of women – the number went down from eight to seven, but their share of cabinet jobs went up as some posts got axed.

In fact, we’ve been stuck with at best 30% of the cabinet being women since that threshold was first reached in 2007. Does this matter? Yes, finds recent research into the effects of female representation on policymaking.

With some impressive data collection from that most glamorous of political arenas, Bavarian councils, the study examines the impact of female councillors on what decisions get taken. The results are… striking. One additional woman on a local council resulted in a 40% expansion of public childcare in their district. You can see the same dynamic in the UK. The British state basically ignored childcare before the 1990s, when a larger cohort of female MPs such as Harriet Harman helped put it on the agenda. Childcare spending even went up during the last decade of austerity.

And it’s not just about decisions. The research finds additional female councillors also affected the dynamics of council meetings, making other women in the council more likely to contribute to discussions. So how are we doing on the whole patriarchy-tackling thing? Not great. Wild rumours circulate that women make up half the population, but it’s a fact they only account for 23% of parliamentarians worldwide.

Read more from Torsten Bell’s Top of the Charts at resolutionfoundation.org