Quota law diversity and its impact on the election of women in Mexico

Abstract

This article analyzes the continual growth in the number of women elected to legislative office in Mexico since the 1950s. We argue that the historical and institutional reforms of the 1990s best explain the gradual and constant increase in this trend. Not all institutional reforms, however, have the same effects on the election of women. Laws that clearly establish gender quota for legislative candidacies have the strongest effects. This paper uses fixed effects longitudinal regression models to test several hypotheses against Mexican legislative results from 1) 18 federal elections between 1952 and 2003 and 2) 154 subnational elections between 1991 and 2005 in 31 states and the Federal District.