Female politicians in India bring greater economic benefits to their constituencies than men: Report

Over the years, a number of female politicians have risen to prominence in India - Indira Gandhi, Mayawati, Vasundara Raje, Mamata Banerjee and Sonia Gandhi to name a few. However, India’s political landscape is overwhelmingly dominated by men. Last year, India placed 148th in a list of countries ranked according to the number of female members of parliament, with only around 12% of seats occupied by women.

This lack of female participation is a pity, especially at the state level. According to a working paper published last month by the United Nations University, the UN’s academic and research wing, India’s female politicians bring greater benefits to their constituencies when compared to men.

The economic activity of around 4,265 legislative assembly constituencies in India from 1992 to 2012 was assessed for the purposes of the report. Due to a lack of sufficient economic indicators and data at the local level, night-time lighting was used as a proxy measure for economic activity.

Additionally, to account for the bias that some constituencies are socially progressive and hence, have greater economic growth, only those constituencies where women were elected to the state assembly by a small margin were analysed.

The report showed that night-time luminosity was 15.25% higher over the average term of state politician in constituencies where woman won by a small margin of votes compared to those where men won by a small margin. This, the researchers inferred, translated into a 1.85% positive difference in GDP growth.

Corruption vs economic growth

Granted, night-time lighting isn’t an obvious indicator of economic growth. But, the report did stress one thing. In most cases, male politicians had criminal records or were more likely to have criminal allegations against them compared to their female counterparts. In a sample of constituencies with close elections, women had a 10% chance of having criminal cases pending against them compared with a 32% likelihood for men.

Hence, the likely reason that female politicians drove higher economic growth in their constituencies is because they’re less susceptible to corruption and crime. To drive the point home, the report showcased an inverse correlation between night-time lighting and elected officials with criminal charges. The researchers cited a paper from 2004 that indicated that night-time lighting fell by 22% in constituencies where people with criminal charges were elected.

Finally, the paper showed that the net assets of women grew at a lesser rate than men over the course of an electoral term. This finding was included to show that women are less corrupt than men.

While the research obviously has limitations, the findings from the paper warrant a long, hard think. There is definitely a case to be made for greater political representation for women, not just for the sake of equality, but also economic growth.

A bill to increase the proportion of female MPs and MLAs to 33% of the overall strength of the parliament and state assemblies has been languishing in the Lok Sabha for years. It’s high time it was given a new lease of life.