This paper analyzes whether the legislative women’s quota implemented in Tanzania has helped to reduce the existing gender gap in that country. We focus on a set of development indicators indicated by the literature and an analysis of female political activity. We exploit the variation in the number of female representatives across the 131 districts of Tanzania, employing a Difference and Differences approach including fixed effects and controlling for a number of socioeconomic variables. Our analysis indicates that the legislative women’s quota in Tanzania has led to significant reductions in the gender gap and improvements for women. The quota has effectively increased political participation in accordance with its goals, and the level of female representation continues to rise. We find evidence that the quota has reduced the gender gap in education for certain age groups, and we find indications of small improvements to female empowerment. In accordance with previous findings in other countries, we find that the increased female representation has led to substantial investments in water infrastructure that has greatly increased the number of people with access to clean water. While we do not find significant health impacts, this may be due to limitations in our dataset.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Literature Review
3 Quota in Tanzania
3.1 Quota Framework
3.2 Implementation of the Quota
3.3 Political Activity of Female MPs
4 Testable Implications
5 Empirical Strategy
6 Data
6.1 Advantages of the Data
6.2 Limitations of the Data
6.3 Variables of Interest
7 Empirical Analysis
7.1 Education
7.2 Female Empowerment
7.3 Health
7.4 Infrastructure - Access to Clean Water
8 Policy Evaluation
Research Objective and Core Topics
This paper examines whether the legislative women’s quota in Tanzania has effectively reduced the gender gap in the country, specifically targeting outcomes in education, health, female empowerment, and infrastructure quality.
- The impact of parliamentary gender quotas on development indicators.
- Analysis of female political participation and parliamentary committee influence.
- Evaluation of education and empowerment outcomes for different age cohorts.
- Evidence regarding infrastructure investment and access to clean water.
- Methodological approach using district-level variation and Difference-in-Differences estimation.
Excerpt from the Book
7.1 Education
One can think of at least three different channels through which an increase in female political presentation might affect on educational attainment. First of all the direct policy channel might be at work as the Tanzanian parliament started reforms in the tertiary education sector with the particular goal of reducing the gender gap. Secondly, young girls might have higher incentives to invest in education through role model effect because they see that not only men have good career prospects and in order to be qualified for these sorts of jobs one might need a better education than before. Thirdly, the society and its beliefs might change due to the different perception of women, which could be a reason why parents now focus more of their time and money on their daughters. If this hypothesis were true once regressing the education outcome on the controls specified in equation (1) the coefficient of the interaction term between the female dummy and the number of female MPs in a district β3 should be positive.
Table 3 shows the results of this analysis, where the outcome variable is a dummy that equals 1 if the respondent has 1 or more years of education attained at the time of the interview and 0 otherwise. Column (1) - (4) shows the results of the regression using the full sample, where column (1) is the most parsimonious specification, (2) includes a set of control variables, (3) additionally controls for district- and year-FE and (4) includes region-year-FE and a linear trend that controls for different trends over time for women and men in the same district.
Summary of Chapters
1 Introduction: Discusses the motivation for the study, highlighting persistent global gender gaps and the specific context of Tanzania's legislative quota.
2 Literature Review: Summarizes research on the relationship between gender inequality, economic growth, and the role of female political participation.
3 Quota in Tanzania: Outlines the historical development of the quota system, its implementation, and the political activity of female members of parliament.
4 Testable Implications: Identifies four theoretical channels—policy changes, social norms, role models, and re-election incentives—through which quotas affect development outcomes.
5 Empirical Strategy: Describes the Difference-in-Differences regression model used to isolate the effect of female representation on district-level outcomes.
6 Data: Details the integration of Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and parliamentary records to construct a unique, multi-source dataset.
7 Empirical Analysis: Presents the quantitative findings regarding education, empowerment, health, and water infrastructure, including robustness checks.
8 Policy Evaluation: Provides a final synthesis of the study's findings, evaluating the success of the quota and suggesting potential future policy directions.
Keywords
Tanzania, Gender Quota, Female Empowerment, Political Representation, Education, Health, Infrastructure, Water Access, Difference-in-Differences, Social Norms, Development Indicators, Parliamentary Committees, Gender Gap, Socioeconomic Impact, Public Policy
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fundamental objective of this research?
The primary objective is to analyze whether the legislative women’s quota implemented in Tanzania has successfully reduced the existing gender gap across various development indicators.
Which thematic areas are central to the analysis?
The study focuses on four key areas: education, female empowerment (specifically household headship), individual health, and access to clean water infrastructure.
What is the central research question?
The central policy question is: "Did the legislative women’s quota reduce the existing gender gap in Tanzania?"
Which scientific methods are applied in the study?
The authors employ a Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach, utilizing district-level variation in female representation, fixed effects for districts and years, and region-year controls to account for potential endogeneity.
What is covered in the main section of the paper?
The main part includes a detailed empirical analysis of how the number of female MPs in a district correlates with improved outcomes in education, household decision-making, and water infrastructure quality.
Which keywords characterize this paper?
Key terms include Tanzania, gender quota, political representation, female empowerment, education, and water infrastructure.
How is the "special seat" system for women in Tanzania structured?
Special seats are reserved positions in parliament allocated to women. The requirement has increased over time, from 15 seats in 1985 to a mandate of 30% of total parliamentary seats as of 2005.
What finding did the authors uncover regarding water infrastructure?
The study found that increased female political representation led to substantial, albeit delayed, improvements in water infrastructure, likely due to female representatives prioritizing infrastructure to secure re-election or responding to specific female preferences.
Does the quota influence health outcomes?
The results regarding health were statistically insignificant, which the authors attribute to limitations in the available data and the small fraction of respondents reporting severe illness.
- Arbeit zitieren
- Jan Stübner (Autor:in), Gregory Raiffa (Autor:in), Ericka Sánchez (Autor:in), Feodora Teti (Autor:in), Andreas Wohlhüter (Autor:in), 2015, Legislative Quota, Women Empowerment and Development. Evidence from Tanzania, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/336661
