Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Please do not cite without permission. We examine whether women’s electoral success induces greater female political participation in subsequent elections. Using the regression discontinuity afforded by close elections between women and men, and constituency level data on India’s state elections for 1980-2007, we show that electoral victory for a woman leads to a large and significant increase in the share of female candidates from major political parties in the subsequent election. Approximately half of this increase is attributable to the entry of new female candidates, a finding that indicates a positive dynamic that could drive continued increases in women’s participation in politics. However, women candidates who win or lose the current election have a lower probability of contesting the next election compared to men. One reason for this is that women are less likely to switch political parties than men. * We thank seminar participants at Oxford and UPF for invaluable feedback. Damian Clark, Maya Shivakumar an