Female political representation and the gender health gap: a cross-national analysis of 49 European countries

Abstract

Background: Does increased female participation in the social and political life of a country improve health? Social participation may improve health because it ensures that the concerns of all people are heard by key decision-makers. More specifically, when women's social participation increases this may lead to health gains because women are more likely to vote for leaders and lobby for policies that will enhance the health of everyone. This article tries to examine whether female participation is correlated with measures of health inequality.

Methods: We draw on data from the World Health Organization Health Equity Status Report initiative and the Varieties of Democracy project to assess whether health is better and health inequalities are smaller in countries where female political representation is greater.

Results: We find consistent evidence that greater female political representation is associated with lower geographical inequalities in infant mortality, smaller inequalities in self-reported health (for both women and men) and fewer disability-adjusted life-years lost for women and men. Finally, we find that greater female political representation is not only correlated with better health for men and women but is also correlated with a smaller gap between men and women because men seem to experience better health in such contexts.

Conclusions: Greater female political representation is associated with better health for everyone and smaller inequalities.

Figure 1

Increased gender equality is associated with reduced inequalities in self-reported health between rich and poor for both men and women

Figure 2

Difference in the number of DALYs lost to unsafe sanitation and air pollution between men and women across 48 countries of the WHO European Region Note: Solid line: regression estimate of the difference in DALYs lost between men and women; dashed lines: 95% CI. The source for the degree of gender equality in politics was the Varieties of Democracy project dataset, in which data were collected through survey questions directed to country experts.

Figure 3

Difference in life expectancy between women and men against the proportion of parliamentary seats held by women across 51 countries of the WHO European Region Note: The source for the proportion of national parliamentary seats held by women was the Quality of Government dataset.