Tag: Legislature

Our research shows that the Democrats have delivered increases in economic gender equality. More precisely, our study shows that when Democrats control state legislatures, women’s income, wages and unemployment all improve substantially, relative to those of men.

Here’s how we did our research

To assess whether Democratic or Republican control of state legislatures affects gender inequality in the workplace, we tracked male and female wages, income, poverty and employment in each state annually for a little over three decades. We used data from the census’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey. We then looked to see if women were catching up to men faster when Democrats controlled the levers of state power then when Republicans did. Further, we employed two statistical techniques — regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference analysis — that allow us to isolate the effect of party control from other factors.

In the first analysis,