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ERIC Number: ED223484
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1982-Sep-2
Pages: 41
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
The Electoral Costs of Being a Woman in the 1979 British General Election.
Rasmussen, Jorgen S.
An analysis of voting behavior toward women candidates in the 1979 general election in Great Britain determined whether public opinion has shifted against an equal political role for women. A total of 104 Labour, Liberal, and Conservative female candidates were measured against a control group of the same number of male candidates. The research compared the percentage of the 1979 vote received by the party of the female candidate to the percentage the party received in 1974. Variables in addition to gender were incumbency, party label, previous party strength, and region. Although a variety of analytical techniques were performed on the data, results indicated that the gender of the candidate had no significant impact upon electoral success. British voters tend to vote along party lines and currently women are candidates in constituencies where their party has not previously fared well. Incumbency is of limited importance to males and even less so for females. Thus, the reason for the lack of female politicians does not lie with the electorate. The only way to increase the proportion of women in the House of Commons is for their parties to place them in constituencies where the parties have done well in the past. (KC)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A