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Female Candidate Performance and Gender Quotas: The Case of Ecuador

Abstract:

Ecuador has one of the strongest electoral designs in terms of gender quotas in Latin America. However, there remains a significant gap between the number of women candidates and the number elected. To explain why a quota does not lead to an elected representation proportional to the quota we examine voter bias and elite bias in the legislative elections of 2013 and 2017. Results show gender bias toward female candidates, and not against, which is a surprising result in a country maintaining a culture of traditional gender roles on average. A breakdown of the voting patterns by gender, however, reveals that the overall voter preference for female candidates is driven entirely by stronger female same-gender voting than male same-gender voting. The lack of representation of women as frontrunners in a political party is likely to explain the gap between female candidates and elected members to the National Assembly. Elite bias against women, not voter bias, explains women’s electoral fortunes in Ecuador.