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Women Candidates for Parliament: Transforming the Agenda?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2009

Pippa Norris  and
Joni Lovenduski
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Extract

Why should more women be elected to positions of power in Britain? What difference would it make? This Note aims to examine these questions using data from a survey of almost six hundred men and women candidates to the British Parliament in the 1987 general election. There are two major arguments for increasing women's representation.

Type
Notes and Comments
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 106 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

1 Stanwick, K. and Kleeman, K., Women Make a Difference (New Brunswick, NJ: Center for the American Woman and Politics, Rutgers University, 1983)Google Scholar; see also Carroll, S., ‘Women Candidates and Support for Feminist Concerns: The Closet Feminist Syndrome’, Western Political Quarterly, 37 (1984), 307–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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3 Baxter, S. and Lansing, M., Women and Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1983), p. 133Google Scholar; Soule, J. W. and McGrath, W. E., ‘A Comparative Study of Male-Female Political Attitudes at Citizen and Elite Levels’Google Scholar, in Githens, and Prestage, , A Portrait of MarginalityGoogle Scholar; Diamond, I., Sex Roles in the State House (New Haven. Conn.: Yale University Press, 1977).Google Scholar

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6 Vallance, E., Women in the House (London: Athlone, 1976)Google Scholar; see also Currell, M., Political Women (London: Croom Helm, 1974).Google Scholar

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11 Vallance, E., ‘Two Cheers for Democracy: Women Candidates in the 1987 General Election’, Parliamentary Affairs, 41 (1988), 86–91.Google Scholar

12 For other results from the survey see Lovenduski, J. and Norris, P., ‘Political Recruitment and the Masculine Candidate Model in the British General Election of 1987: Obstacles to the Feminisation of Political Elites’, European Journal of Political Research (1989).Google Scholar

13 The survey included responses from 139 MPs, who represented 24 per cent of the sample, compared with 633 elected British MPs out of 2,004 candidates, which represents 31.5 per cent of all candidates for the major parties.

14 Wood, Alan H., ed., The Times Guide of the House of Commons, 1987 (London: The Times, 1987).Google Scholar

15 As a result of the first mailing, 542 completed questionnaires were received, along with some refusals (N = 28) and non-contacts at the given address (N = 10). Given limited resources we were unable to send a second mailing to all non-respondents, but reminders were sent out after the election to female non-respondents because we were concerned about the number in the sub-sample. Following the second reminder we received 628 replies in total, including 590 completed questionnaires (29.5 per cent of all candidates). The response rate from Conservative candidates was slightly lower (26.2 per cent) than from Labour (33.5 per cent) or the Alliance (31.6 per cent). Accordingly, the Conservative response was adjusted by applying a positive weighting (1.26) to the results so that the sample remained representative of all candidates. It should be noted that given the small number of cases in some sub-samples (e.g. female Conservative candidates) considerable caution is needed when interpreting the results in cross-tabulations.

16 The items were as follows: ‘Can you say whether the following have gone too far, not far enough or are they about right: (a) Welfare benefits that are available to people today (WELFARE); (b) Attempts to give equal opportunities to women in Britain (WOMEN); (c) Government spending on defence (DEFENCE); (d) The building of nuclear power stations (NUCLEAR); (e) Attempts to give equal opportunities for black people and Asians in Britain (RACE); (f) The availability of abortion on the NHS (ABORTION)’.

17 Pearson correlations between attitudes on these items were significant (p > 0.01 in each case, N = 585).