Jackie (and Jill) Robinson in the Statehouse: Gender and Educational Attainment Influences on Office-Holding and Leadership Positions in the U.S. States

Abstract

While legislative gender disparity has declined over the past few decades, gender imbalance has continued to be a stubborn fact of representative democracy in the United States. This divide persists even though females have caught up in terms of the historical educational gap. These societal shifts have been significant, however little time has been devoted to analysis of legislator education levels and none to the relationship with gender in the extant literature. This paper seeks to fill that gap, looking at the intersection through the lens of one of the prevailing theories of the expectations of female candidates and legislators.