When Do Family Ties Matter? The Duration of Female Suffrage and Women’s Path to High Political Office

Abstract

While the percentage of female heads of state in the world has increased to around 10 percent in the 2010s, a female president or prime minister still remains an exception. Recent scholarship has proposed a number of explanations behind this phenomenon, but there exist important gaps. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, we use new and comprehensive data to undertake a systematic examination of the differences in the personal, education, and career backgrounds between female and male effective political leaders from 1960 to 2010. We find that female leaders are as qualified as men. Second, because the phenomenon of female leadership is still a rare occurrence, we argue that this fact must be accounted for in empirical modeling. Third, we show that many female leaders tend to acquire the necessary resources, support, and name recognition through political dynasties. To that end, women leaders need to rely on family ties more than men do. However, the importance of such connections attenuates when female suffrage has been in place for longer, and citizens are more open to women in politics.