Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/89012

KEYWORDS : Gender gap;local council elections;political party;political participation;candidate data

In this article, we analyzed data on 1833 candidates who ran for council elections in 2019 in 127 municipalities in Hokkaido to investigate difficulties faced by women in the two phases of “deciding to run for office” and “being elected to office.” We found that more women tend to run as party candidates, which suggests that support from a political party may complement a woman candidate’s lack of family support or resources to run for office. In contrast to the possible importance of receiving support from a political party in the phase of deciding to run for office, belonging to a political party was not found to make a difference in the phase of being elected to office. We also found that female candidates who had never been a councilor were more successful as the number of electoral seats in the district increased. Our study suggests that women are facing difficulties in the phase of deciding to run for office and that environments in which women run for office differ greatly between cities, towns, and villages.