But why is this a better world?

Apparently having more women in power making decisions leads to more decisions being taken which make the world a better place. We’re not so sure.

In fact, we’ve been stuck with at best 30% of the cabinet being women since that threshold was first reached in 2007. Does this matter? Yes, finds recent research into the effects of female representation on policymaking.

With some impressive data collection from that most glamorous of political arenas, Bavarian councils, the study examines the impact of female councillors on what decisions get taken. The results are… striking. One additional woman on a local council resulted in a 40% expansion of public childcare in their district. You can see the same dynamic in the UK. The British state basically ignored childcare before the 1990s, when a larger cohort of female MPs such as Harriet Harman helped put it on the agenda. Childcare spending even went up during the last decade of austerity.

Our point is not about whether paid childcare is a good idea or not. We can see value in moving something from the unpaid, household, labour section of the economy into the paid, market sector of it. It allows greater division and specialisation of labour for example, thus greater efficiency. We can also see that this effect might not be all that great - depends on how many children any one employed person is allowed to look after. There’s also that small point that kids might like being looked after by their Mums. Possibly, even, that mothers like being Mums - we do find a decent portion of the population deciding to just that, after all.

Rather, our point is the assumption there. It is simply assumed that more paid childcare is good. Thus anything that provides more of it is good, like female political management. The argument in favour of equal political rights is not, to our minds, a consequential one. That is, it’s not dependent upon, nor even supported by, the decisions that result.

After all, we don’t use whatever Caroline Lucas is getting wrong this week to argue against female MPs, despite the temptation.

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