Closing the Gap: An Analysis of Women's Representation in State Legislatures and the Gender Pay Gap

Abstract

In several US state legislatures, the number of women lawmakers has recently reached unprecedented levels. This raises the following question: what are the policy consequences associated with an increase in women legislators? While legislative scholars have uncovered that an increase in representation through women state lawmakers can result in different policy outcomes, one outcome that has not been considered is the size of the gender wage gap. In this research note, we develop the theoretical linkage that connects gender representation in state legislatures to the level of pay inequality within a state. We test our theoretical expectation with two different measures of pay inequality at the state level using panel data. Our results suggest that an increase in women state lawmakers corresponds to a smaller wage gap between men and women within the state. These findings deepen our understanding of the importance of gender representation in state legislatures.