Gender Quota Laws and Women in Cabinets

Do legislative gender quotas increase women’s presence in cabinets? Women remain underrepresented in political leadership worldwide. As a remedy, over 80 countries have adopted gender quotas, requiring parties to nominate or elect a minimum share of women. But can quotas have effects beyond the positions they directly target? We argue that quotas increase the presence of women in executive cabinets by expand-ing the pool of experienced female legislators. Using a global dataset (168 countries) from 1990 to 2021, we find gender quotas increase the share of women ministers by 15 percent relative to the average baseline–including increases in both high- and low-prestige portfolios. Consistent with a supply-side mechanism, effects are largest in parliamentary democracies—where ministers are often selected from parliament—and in countries that experienced the greatest increases in women’s legislative representa-tion post-quota. The findings suggest quotas can generate meaningful spillover effects at the highest levels of government.