RepresentWomen Research Archive
Thank you for sharing your interest in our research. This is an archived page from our old website, please follow this link to find our latest research, but please feel free to scroll below for a few quick highlights.
2020 Voting Reforms Research
RepresentWomen tracks women's representation and leadership in the United States and around the world to identify the "best practices" for creating a more representative government. Our research indicates that, even as more women run, electoral rules and systems play a major role in determining electoral outcomes. As seen in both our 2016 and 2020 reports, we find that electoral outcomes for women and people of color are overall better in jurisdictions that have implemented ranked choice voting (RCV).
https://fairvote.app.box.com/embed/s/338stvaoz3urud062ym5kt8r44927oze?sortColumn=date&view=list8005500
2020 PACs and Donors Research
Even as some political scientists dispute the impact campaign spending has on electoral outcomes, anyone following the 2020 primaries knows that the viability of a candidate is often evaluated in part by her fundraising ability. Our 2020 PAC report on the 2018 election cycle, analyzes the data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics with a gender lens. PACs and donors have a vital role to play as changemakers in 2020 and beyond and helping to increase women's representation.
https://fairvote.app.box.com/embed/s/19kj1faa8ofy9vy69cq09s42f3hanq0d?sortColumn=date&view=list8005500
2019 International Research
In many countries around the world, women are entering political office at higher rates than in the United States. As of January 1, 2020, the U.S. ranked 82nd in the world for the number of women (101 of 435, or 23%) in the lower legislature, the U.S. House of Representatives. Twenty years ago, there were 58 women in the U.S. House, and the country ranked 48th for women's representation. The following report investigates this phenomenon. Our 2019 report shows that electoral rules and systems (specifically, the use of gender quotas and proportional representation) matter for women's representation.
https://fairvote.app.box.com/embed/s/yz5vcfgnxismzkvdee98snq3sdjuk8ht?sortColumn=date&view=list8005500
2019 Gender Parity Index
Our Gender Parity Index measures women's representation across all levels of government in the United States each year and assigns grades to each state according to their progress towards gender parity. This research is the backbone of our work at RepresentWomen, because in order to assess the best strategies for advancing women's representation and leadership, we must first understand how close we are to that goal. Our 2019 report finds that women are underrepresented at the national, state, and local level, and that parity for men and women in elected office is unlikely to occur without structural changes in recruitment rules, electoral systems, and legislative norms.
https://fairvote.app.box.com/embed/s/zqj8hcwwnjy5ikhdu8ui67t2jbropxs5?sortColumn=date&view=list8005500
More Research
For any new to RepresentWomen, these four reports cover our most recent work in our pursuit of identifying the "best practices" for increasing women's representation and leadership in the United States. But these reports just scratch the surface of our work. To see more, please turn to our new Research Hub, where we will feature the latest on women's representation and the systems-based changes we need if we hope to reach gender parity in our lifetimes.