Maya Dalton, a political science graduate student, and Giancarlo Visconti have a new paper, “Representation Behind Closed Doors: The Effect of Electing Women Mayors on Domestic Violence,” forthcoming in the Journal of Politics.
The paper uses administrative data from Chile to examine the influence of electing female mayors in municipalities on reports of domestic violence. They find that citizen-initiated reports increase a few years after the election of a woman mayor, while police-identified cases remain unchanged. It shows that women mayors highlight gender-based violence in policy proposals and increase resources for community organizations.
