POLITICS
Why diverse legislatures are more innovative
New study finds link between more women legislators and policy innovation in American statehouses
In 2022, the Oklahoma legislature mandated health insurers cover diagnostic mammograms, becoming one of the first states to do so. The bill’s sponsor, State Representative Melissa Provezano credited the increase of women legislators for the innovation, saying “This new law is a direct result of more women getting elected to the Legislature.”
Although just 20% of Oklahoma state legislators are women, women’s representation has increased in the state from between 4 and 10% through the 1990s. Gains in Oklahoma are reflective of similar trends across the United States, with Nevada becoming the first female majority legislature in American history after the 2018 elections.
Although they remain unrepresentative, U.S. statehouses are more descriptively representative than ever before on race, gender, class, and sexual orientation dimensions. Descriptive representation is the extent to which elected officials reflect the descriptive characteristics (e.g. class, education, race, gender, etc.) of their constituencies.
Descriptive representation matters because it leads to more attention on the agenda and in constituent service for the communities that share characteristics with legislators. Having more lawmakers from diverse backgrounds also changes the mix of preferences in the statehouse, which can affect what makes it into bills and whether they pass.
But we know less about how descriptive representation affects the capacity of the legislature to be innovative, or to be an early adopter of new policies or to customize policies upon adoption.
Although Representative Provezano saw a direct link between policy innovation and descriptive representation, there has not been a systematic quantitative exploration of this relationship across states, over time, and for several dimensions of descriptive representation.
This is surprising because research on descriptive representation and innovation has flourished in other fields of study. In business, women’s representation on corporate boards has been linked to greater investment in innovation and more patents, while in education, more racial minorities among the ranks of teachers can boost performance among students.
In a new peer reviewed study in the journal Political Research Quarterly, we assess the relationship between descriptive representation and policy innovation in state legislatures from 1984–2016.
We measure the number of legislators from seven different historically underrepresented identity groups: women, Blacks, Latino/as, Native Americans, Asians and Pacific Islanders, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people, and the working class.
We find consistent evidence that women’s representation is associated with more innovation, including the adoption of new policies and the production of novel bill text. Specifically, more women increase the rate of innovation by an additional policy per year, and about 20% more unique text included in policies.
The impact of women’s representation depends on context. For example, women do not have much effect in highly polarized legislatures. This is because the unique perspectives and ideas that women bring to the legislative process are only heard if their colleagues are willing to listen and build coalitions together. This doesn’t happen where partisan brinkmanship dominates.
The impact of women’s representation also is independent of having a “critical mass” of women. Each woman legislator enriches the collective pool of experiences, skills, and perspectives to draw upon when crafting legislation, which is the key to boosting innovation.
We find inconsistent but suggestive evidence that Black and Native American representation also boosts innovation. Our conservative approach to statistical testing could be one reason we do not detect an impact on innovation for other dimensions of descriptive representation.
We think this is an important first step in understanding the relationship between descriptive representation and innovation in legislatures. And its one that has proven what many lawmakers — including Representative Provezano — expected all along: the innovative capacity of the legislature is enhanced when new and diverse voices are included in the process.
Having legislatures that reflect the diversity of America is important because it enhances the ability of government to provide innovative solutions to public problems.
