Barking up the wrong tree? Voter bias and female underrepresentation in Japanese politics

Previous studies on gender bias in the evaluation of politicians by voters have reported mixed results. We seek to understand these mixed findings by focusing on Japan, where female political representation is the lowest among advanced democracies and gender stereotypes are prevalent. We consider that gender stereotypes and the dearth of women in politics affect the evaluation of politicians via two distinct mechanisms: biased beliefs and weak priors. The two mechanisms are assumed to run counter to each other, thus leading to the null or mixed findings for gendered evaluation reported by previous studies. To test our argument, we conduct a series of survey experiments in Japan. Our findings conform to neither of the two mechanisms. Even in a society with low female political representation, we find no evidence of the gendered evaluation of candidates by voters. We suggest that rather than biasing voters’ evaluation of candidates, gender stereotypes dissuade women from aspiring to a political career and elite electoral gatekeepers from selecting female candidates.