An unexpected barrier to political candidacy? Gender, discouragement, and candidate persistence – online

A procedural rule requiring candidates to pay a monetary deposit to participate in an election exists in roughly half of the democracies in the world. The rationale for this seemingly innocent rule is to discourage the rise of ‘non-serious’ candidates. In this webinar, Associate Professor Marco Faravelli and Dr Umair Khalil will discuss the case of India, the world’s largest democracy with an electorate of almost 900 million people.

 

Our presenters will explore how this rule inadvertently lowers female candidates’ likelihood of contesting in the next election by 60% relative to those women who manage to keep their deposit. This result is driven by states characterised by more regressive gender norms, shifting towards a cultural origin of this phenomenon. Female candidates who forfeit the deposit are also 90% more likely to be nominated by a different party and obtain a lower vote share. Importantly, they found no such effects for men.

 

Join Associate Professor Marco Faravelli and Dr Umair Khalil as they share their insights on this important topic.