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Dr. Stephanie A.
Slocum-Schaffer is Assistant Professor of Political Science at
Shepherd College. Before joining Shepherd's faculty, Dr.
Slocum-Schaffer taught at Gettysburg College and The American
University and held the post of Assistant Director of the Center for
Congressional and Presidential Studies at the American University
and assistant provost and associate provost at Gettysburg College.
Her research has focused on a
variety of areas, most notably education policy, presidential
decision making, the political psychology of leadership, and
American voting behavior. In May of 2003, Dr. Slocum-Schaffer
published the book America in the Seventies: A Lesson in Limits
with the Syracuse University Press.
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"Cracking the Glass Ceiling? Women's Representation
in Post-Industrial Democracies" |
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the past two decades, the number of women holding seats in
parliament has increased substantially in the post-industrial
democracies -- from about 9% in the early eighties to better than
20% by 2001. Despite these gains, however, there is still a great
deal of variation in women’s representation across these
countries, currently ranging from a high of 42% in Sweden to a low
of 7% in Japan. Furthermore,
cross-country variations in the rates of change in women’s
representation over time are also present.
This work therefore addresses the factors influencing the
levels of women’s representation both cross-nationally and over
time. The results of a pooled cross-sectional time-series analysis
of 21 post-industrial democracies from 1979-2001 suggest that
institutional, political and structural factors all have an impact
on both the levels of women’s representation and the changes in
the levels of women’s representation in parliament over time.
The results further indicate that the institutional context
(consensus versus majoritarian democracy) plays an influential role
not only in determining the level of women’s representation in a
country’s parliament, but also how these outcomes are generated. |
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Download
Flyer for Presentation (PDF File) |
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