County Governing Boards: Where are All the Women?

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-19-2017

Publication Title

Politics, Groups and Identities

Volume

7

Issue

1

First page number:

39

Last page number:

51

Abstract

This research seeks to explore the extent of women representation on county governing boards and tests several hypotheses to explain variation in representation. This study evaluates a random sample of 394 of the more than 3000 counties in the United States. Half of the counties did not have any women serving on their county governing boards. A two-stage analysis using first a logit model sought to explain when counties have women commissioners and then a truncated regression analysis evaluated the percentage of women serving on county boards. Size of governing boards, size of government, religious adherence, and two election formats had significant effects in explaining when a county had women commissioners. Three variables (religious adherence, level of support for President Obama, and size of governing boards) were significant in explaining the percentage of women serving on county governing boards with size of the boards operating opposite of the hypothesized direction.

Keywords

Women; Descriptive representative; U.S. countries; Local politics

Disciplines

American Politics | Women's Studies

Language

English

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