TY  - JOUR
AU  - Gagliarducci,Stefano
AU  - Paserman,M. Daniele
TI  - Gender Interactions within Hierarchies: Evidence from the Political Arena
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14893
PY  - 2009
Y2  - April 2009
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14893
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14893.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Stefano Gagliarducci
University of Rome Tor Vergata
Via Columbia 2, 00133 Rome
Italy
E-Mail: stefano.gagliarducci@uniroma2.it

Daniele Paserman
Department of Economics
Boston University
270 Bay State Road
Boston, MA 02215
Tel: 1-617-3535695
Fax: 1-617-3534449
E-Mail: paserman@bu.edu
AB  - This paper studies gender interactions within hierarchical organizations using a large data set on the duration of Italian municipal governments elected between 1993 and 2003. A municipal government can be viewed as a hierarchy, whose stability over time depends on the degree of cooperation between and within ranks. 

We find that in municipalities headed by female mayors, the probability of early termination of the legislature is higher. This result persists and becomes stronger when we control for municipality fixed effects as well as non-random sorting of women into municipalities using regression discontinuity in gender-mixed electoral races decided by a narrow margin.

The likelihood that a female mayor survives until the end of her term is lowest when the council is entirely male, and in regions with less favorable attitudes towards working women. The evidence is suggestive that female mayors are less able at fostering cooperation among men, or alternatively, that men are more reluctant to be headed by women. Other interpretations receive less support in the data. Our results may provide an alternative explanation for the underrepresentation of women in leadership positions.
ER  -