Electoral Gender Quotas and Diversity : A Study of the Binominal Parity Vote in French Local Elections

Abstract: This study has looked at how the diversity of representatives’ backgrounds changed after the introduction of the Binominal parity vote in the French local elections. The aim was to contribute to our understanding of the impact of gender quotas in other dimensions than gender. Another aim was to explore the workings of the Binominal parity vote, which has a unique design and obligates candidates to run as pairs, constituting of one man and one woman. The diversity of each local council in 2011 and 2015 was measured with the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI). By looking at the changes in HHI, the study has shown that the diversity of representatives and candidates has increased in terms of age and profession, but decreased in terms of party representation. The exact workings of the mechanisms behind the changes have not been established, but some preliminary conclusions have been made. The relationship between the gender quota’s effectiveness and the change in diversity is strong, but statistically insignificant. Societal gender differences cannot be the sole driver of the changes, as the diversity increased among both women and men. If the increased district magnitude from one to two contributed to the increase in diversity, it was not through the strategic matching of representatives, as they are shown to be almost randomly matched.