The Correlation Between Women’s Participation in Politics and Gender- Sensitive COVID-19 Policies

POLICY BRIEF

Women in Policy-Making: Why Every Woman Counts The Correlation Between Women’s Participation in Politics and GenderSensitive COVID-19 Policies in Africa

Executive Summary The year 2020 was marked by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a health crisis that has not only killed millions of people worldwide but has also had lasting social and economic consequences, especially for marginalised groups.

Women and girls have been tremendously impacted by the pandemic, with a large number of them losing jobs or leaving the workforce altogether. The current number of women in the workforce is the lowest since 1990, gender-based violence and harmful practices are skyrocketing, and girls have less access to education. Due to this disproportionate impact, COVID19 policy measures must be gendered and address women and girls’ particular needs.

The objective of this policy brief is to provide concrete evidence that women’s political participation as members of parliament (MPs) in African countries is associated with a higher number of gender-sensitive COVID-19 policies, and by extension with greater material benefits to women citizens.

Our statistical analysis of the relationship between the number of women MPs and the number of gender-sensitive COVID19 measures showed that one woman MP is associated with an increase in the number of gender-

sensitive policy measures that is 1.7 times greater than the increase associated with one male MP. (for a detailed explanation of our statistical methodology, see the last section of this brief, p.11).

Notably, it is not the proportion (i.e. the percentage) of women in a parliament that is correlated with greater gendersensitivity in policy measures, but rather the raw number of women.

This means every woman MP counts, as she can contribute to inclusive policy drafting prior to the voting proceedings, where the percentage of women would presumably matter.

Some African countries’ number of gender-sensitive measures differed significantly from the number predicted by our model, which could be due to a variety of factors, such as whether women MPs are empowered to actively shape policies to include the priorities of women citizens.

Our evidence, that women MPs’ presence is often associated with policies that benefit other women, calls for the greater inclusion of women in policy-making, both in representation and the extent of their participation, so that government policies may benefit all women on an equitable basis with men.

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Recommendations 01

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Governments should strive to include gender-sensitivity in COVID-19 response measures as women’s particular economic, social, and political struggles differ from those of males, who are the ones that tend to benefit the most from gender-blind policy.

Governments should strive to increase the number of women legislators through quotas and capacity building for women aspirants, as an increase in the number of women legislators translates into policymaking that benefits women and other marginalised groups.

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Political parties and government legislatures should create a political culture that recognises women’s leadership and policymaking abilities and includes women legislators in all aspects of policy-making.

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Governments should earmark resources for women politicians/aspirants, for instance developing a fund for women aspiring to be politicians, reducing the registration fees for women who want to run for office, etc.

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Political parties, civil society organisations, and governments should provide training, mentoring, and coaching to women seeking elected offices on how to run successful political campaigns.

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The Impact of COVID-19 and the Importance of Gender-Sensitive Measures

The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a public health emergency affecting billions of people worldwide, it is also creating significant social and economic disruption, reinforcing existing inequalities. Women and girls have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, from the number of women in health care professions to the pre-existing inequalities. The effects have been a widening of the gender wage gap, women assuming a greater share of their responsibilities at home, increased gender-based violence, women having a higher risk of losing their jobs and unequal access to education.

Gender pay gap Gender-Based Violence

Unemployment/ Women more likely to lose their jobs in the pandemic

Women in healthcare professions at higher risk of infection

Child Marriage and Teen Pregnancy

Unequal Access to Education

Food insecurity

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A year into the pandemic, we have seen the remarkable effect this crisis has had on women all over the world. For instance, more women than men have lost their jobs or dropped out of the labour force.

According to a McKinsey study, “women make up 39% of global employment but account for 54% of overall job losses. One reason for this greater effect on women is that the virus is significantly increasing the burden of unpaid care, disproportionately carried by women”.² Moreover, the number of gender-based violence (GBV), violence against women (VAW), and particularly domestic violence cases has increased significantly since the beginning of the pandemic. UN Women coined the term ‘Shadow Pandemic’³ for this phenomenon. Harmful practices, such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and child marriage, have also increased since the beginning of the pandemic, with the closing of schools and the disruption of children’s routines and support systems.⁴ It is estimated that due to the pandemic, 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM between now and 2030.⁵

Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights (SRHR) have also been affected during the crisis, given that healthcare funding has been focused on managing the pandemic.⁶ Since the global pandemic has affected women and girls differently than men, it is essential that COVID policies take this into account and implement gendersensitive measures. As of February 20th, 2021, according to the African Union’s Africa CDC⁷ there were 3,819,5766 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the continent and 100,993 deaths, and the numbers were rising. In response to the growing number of cases, many countries have adopted preventative measures to inhibit the spread of the virus. Given the social and economic consequences the pandemic has had on people’s lives, countries have also implemented measures attempting to diminish some of these effects.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ International Labor Organization. ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@dgreports/@dcomm/documents/briefingnote/wcms_767028.pdf ² McKinsey Global Institute. COVID-19 and gender equality: Countering the regressive effects. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/covid-19-and-gender-equality-countering-the-regressive-effects ³ Un Women. Shadow Pandemic. https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/in-focus-gender-equality-in-covid-19-response/violence-against-women-during-covid-19 ⁴ UNICEF. Technical Note on COVID-19 and Harmful Practices. https://www.unicef.org/media/67506/file/TechnicalNote-COVID-19-and-HarmfulPractices-April%202020.pdf ⁵ United Nations. Secretary-General, in Observance Message, Calls for Unity to End Female Genital Mutilation, Warns Girls at Greater Risk of Harmful Practice during Pandemic. https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/sgsm20571.doc.htm ⁶ UNFPA. Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Preparedness and Response UNFPA Interim Technical Brief. https://www.unfpa.org/sites/default/files/resource-pdf/COVID-19_Preparedness_and_Response__UNFPA_Interim_Technical_Briefs_Maternal_and_Newborn_Health_-23_March_2020_.pdf ⁷ African Union CDC, “Coronavirus Disease 2019”. https://africacdc.org/covid-19/

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According to UN Women and UNDP’s Global Gender Response Tracker, 52 African countries implemented measures against COVID-19, of which 33 had at least one gender-sensitive measure.¹ Gendersensitive measures are those that take gender into account or especially focus on violence against women, women’s economic security, and unpaid care work.

The top 5 countries in Africa with the highest number of gender-sensitive measures were Egypt with 21, South Africa with 14, Uganda with 11, and Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria each with 10. Regionally, North Africa and East Africa had the highest percentages of gender-sensitive measures out of total COVID-19 measures (43% of 86 measures and 43% of 103 measures, respectively). West Africa and Southern Africa were not far behind, with 30% of 132 and 33% of 105 measures deemed gender-sensitive, respectively.

Central Africa was the region with the lowest amount of gender-sensitive measures and COVID-19 measures in general, with only 20% of 35 measures sensitive to gender issues.² Out of the 437 gender-sensitive measures in the continent, most fell under the social protection category, totaling 198 measures.

For instance, Algeria implemented a policy expanding social security coverage to include childbirth, while Angola implemented a policy moving street children into reception centres within emergency centres.

In the continent, 121 measures were under the economic support category.

For instance, in Cabo Verde, the government launched a state-backed line of credit to boost liquidity in companies during the pandemic, while in Côte d’Ivoire the government implemented a private sector support fund.

There were a total of 83 VAW measures passed by African governments. For example, in Malawi, the government spearheaded awareness campaigns about VAW throughout the country, while in Morocco, the government launched a financial support programme for NGOs working with women in difficult situations.

Only 35 of the measures in Africa were under the labour market category. One of these was in Tunisia, where the government implemented a line of credit for domestic workers, and another in Liberia, where the government extended credit for street vendors and informal workers, which are mostly composed of women.

Because of the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on women and girls, there is a need for a gendered approach in dealing with the consequences of COVID-19. Women politicians have an important role in making this happen.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ UNDP Gender Tracker. https://data.undp.org/gendertracker/ ² UNDP Gender Tracker. https://data.undp.org/gendertracker/

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Women’s Political Participation Although women make up half of the world’s population, historically they have not had the same representation in politics. Including women in politics is not only a matter of gender equality and human rights but has a significant impact on what political issues are raised and how policies are shaped. Moreover, it increases the chances of governments focusing on introducing and amending laws and policies to reduce gender discrimination and inequality. According to NDI¹, “whether a legislator is male or female has a distinct impact on their policy priorities, making it critical that women are present in politics to represent the concerns of women and other marginalized voters and help improve the responsiveness of policymaking and governance”.

Women have to overcome multiple obstacles to pursue a political life. For instance, lack of education and restrictive social, cultural, and traditional behaviours.

The media also plays an important role on how women candidates are perceived, influencing their candidacy.

For instance, the portrayal of women as less significant candidates, or not having enough air time or press coverage to present their campaigns affects the public in taking them seriously or acknowledging them as credible candidates, compromising their chances.

Although women are not yet on equal terms with regards to political representation, the number of women parliamentarians has been growing over the last 20 years. For example, between 2000 to 2020, the African region has seen an increase from 11% of women legislators to 24%.²

Source: UN GenderStats, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2020

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ National Democratic Institute, “Why women in politics”. https://www.ndi.org/sites/default/files/Handout%204%20%20Why%20Women%20in%20Politics.doc ² King’s College London (2020), “Why we need more women in politics”. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/why-we-need-more-women-in-politics

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According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, as of February 2021, women hold more than 40% of the seats in parliament in five countries in Africa.¹ Rwanda stands out, not only in terms of parliaments in Africa, but also globally, with women holding 61.25% of the seats in parliament. It is followed by South Africa with 46.62%, Namibia with 44.23%, Senegal with 43.03% and Mozambique with 42.4%. In six other African countries, women’s representation is well above the 30% mark.

It is important to note that all the African countries that achieved a minimum 30% representation of women in their parliaments have had a legislated gender quota in place (see table).² Given the established importance of women’s robust participation in politics, and the importance of gender-sensitive policies in the lives of African women, this policy brief has the objective of analyzing the relationship between the number of gender-sensitive COVID-19 measures and the number of women MPs in Africa.

Women (% MPs)

Gender Quota

Rwanda

61.25

YES

South Africa

46.62

YES

Namibia

44.23

YES

Senegal

43.03

YES

Mozambique

42.4

YES

Ethiopia

38.76

YES

Burundi

38.21

YES

Tanzania

36.72

YES

Uganda

34.86

YES

Cameroon

33.89

YES

Zimbabwe

31.85

YES*

Angola

29.55

YES

Country

African parliaments where women comprise 30% of MPs or more. * Zimbabwe's legislated quota has now expired but it was in place throughout 2020.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ IPU Parline Data. https://data.ipu.org/ ² IDEA Gender Quota Database. https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/gender-quotas/database

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Analysis of the correlation between the gender-sensitivity of measures and women’s participation Our analysis of the relationship between the number of women in African parliaments and the number of COVID-19 measures that were gender-sensitive showed that a higher number of women MPs is associated with a higher number of gender-sensitive measures.

Specifically, for every additional woman MP added to a parliament, the number of gender-sensitive measures is projected to increase by 2.7% of a gender-sensitive measure, i.e. this hypothetical woman could write 2.7% of a policy measure that is gender-sensitive.

In contrast, an additional man MP would increase the number of gender-sensitive measures by 1.6% of a gender-sensitive measure.

So, on average, an additional man MP would do 59.3% of the work a woman MP would do towards passing a gendersensitive COVID-19 policy measure.

It is important to caveat that these hypothetical scenarios should not be interpreted to mean that our statistical analysis proved that women MPs cause more gender-sensitive measures. What the analysis tells us is simply that the two are correlated, and we can use our knowledge of women’s priorities when they assume political office¹ to hypothesize this causal pathway.

Moreover, a key finding from our analysis has been that it is not the proportion (i.e. per cent) of women in a parliament that matters when looking at the number of gender-sensitive measures a country was able to pass, but rather the raw number of women.² We theorise that this is because the details of policies are shaped prior to any voting proceedings, meaning that every single woman MP who is invested in an issue can shape the content of policies.

Thus, smaller parliaments where a small number of women account for a high percentage of MPs may pass fewer gender-sensitive measures than parliaments with a large number of women, who due to large parliament size account for only a small percentage of all MPs. In other words, every woman MP counts.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ United Nations ESCAP (2019), “Women’s Political Participation and Leadership”, https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/d8files/knowledgeproducts/SDPB%202019-03_Political%20Participation.pdf ² When we ran a linear regression of the percent of women MPs versus number of gender-sensitive COVID-19 measures, the correlation was not significant, with p≈0.09, and r-squared of 0.05.

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This can be seen when looking at the countries with the highest number of gender-sensitive measures: Egypt (21 measures), South Africa (14 measures), and Uganda (11 measures).

The representation of women in these countries varies hugely from 27.4% women MPs out of 591 seats in Egypt to 34.86% out of 459 seats in Uganda, to 46.6% out of 397 seats in South Africa.

However, the number of women these percentages represent is quite similar: 160 women MPs in Uganda, 162 in Egypt, and 182 in South Africa. Based on the number of women MPs, Egypt, Uganda and South Africa rank in the top four

countries with the highest number of women in parliament, outranked only by Ethiopia.

However, there are several striking exceptions to this pattern. For instance, both Mozambique and Tanzania have a high number of women MPs: 106 and 141, respectively, but these countries only passed one gender-sensitive measure each.

In contrast, in Nigeria, where women’s representation among MPs stands at 5.8% of 360 seats, 10 gender-sensitive measures were passed. We suggest that this could be in part due to the hard work of the 21 Nigerian women who comprise the 5.8% of MPs in the country.¹

This graph shows the African countries which have passed at least one COVID-19 policy measure, ranked from left to right by the number of their measures that were gender-sensitive. The grey bars represent the total number of COVID-19 measures (gender-sensitive and not), so the ratio between the purple bar and the grey bar indicates the ratio between gender-sensitive and non-gender-sensitive measures. The red line shows the number of women MPs (plotted on the right-hand axis). While the number of women MPs is generally higher on the left, among countries with a high number of gender-sensitive measures, and lower on the right, there are a few exceptions, such as Ethiopia, Algeria, South Sudan, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Somalia. In these countries, the number of gender-sensitive measures passed is much lower than we would expect given their large number of women MPs.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ UNDP Gender Tracker. https://data.undp.org/gendertracker/

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Clearly, we cannot predict exactly the number of gender-sensitive measures that a country will pass based solely on the number of MPs, as 160 women MPs in Uganda are correlated with 11 measures, whereas 21 women MPs in Nigeria with 10 measures.

This stark difference in the ratio of women MPs to gender-sensitive between these two countries could be due to a variety of factors, including the efficiency of their respective parliaments as a whole, and women MPs’ empowerment -- their ability to shape policies and take on an active role in their elected capacity.

In addition, a limitation of looking simply at the number of gender-sensitive measures is that it does not account for the content of these policies. For instance, if a country passes one measure that addresses multiple aspects of women’s difficulties during the pandemic, the model does not account for that when compared with a country where one policy measure only addresses one small aspect of a woman’s economic/social/physical struggle.

Since even one gender-sensitive policy could potentially translate into significant relief for women in a country, we calculated the number of women it would take, based on the data from African countries, to pass a single gendersensitive COVID-19 policy.

According to this model, it would take 70 women MPs (in a hypothetical parliament with 0 male MPs) to yield one gendersensitive measure, whereas it would take 117 men (in a parliament with 0 women MPs) to yield one gender-sensitive measure.

This shows that an additional woman MP is 1.7 times more impactful in increasing the gender-sensitivity of policy measures compared to an additional male MP. This can be explained using conclusions drawn by other researchers¹, who have found that women politicians tend to prioritise social issues such as health, education, parental leave, and pensions.

These findings demonstrate the need to ensure women’s representation in government, both in terms of the number of seats occupied by women, as well these women’s ability to shape policies.

Conclusion The gender-sensitivity of COVID-19 policies is not a measure of political correctness. It is a measure that illustrates whether women’s livelihoods, safety, and health are taken into account by the governments that have been sworn in to serve them.

Our evidence that women MPs’ presence results in policies that benefit other women suggests that by meaningfully including women of diverse backgrounds in the process of policy-writing, these women are able to take into consideration the circumstances of women like them in a way that male MPs cannot or often do not consider.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ United Nations ESCAP (2019), “Women’s Political Participation and Leadership”, https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/d8files/knowledgeproducts/SDPB%202019-03_Political%20Participation.pdf

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Methodology and Statistical Test Results We set out to disprove the null hypothesis that there is no relationship between the number of women in African parliaments and the number of COVID-19 policy measures taken that have been deemed gender-sensitive by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Our hypothesis was that a higher number of women in parliaments in Africa is correlated with a higher number of gender-sensitive COVID-19 measures.

To test this, we used two datasets. The first was the UNDP’s Global Gender Response Tracker. This dataset compiled all policy measures passed by national governments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and categorised them as gender-sensitive if the measures, “seek to directly address gendered risks and challenges caused by the COVID-19 crisis. [...] These risks include: (i) violence against women and girls, (ii) women’s economic security, and (iii) unpaid care work.”¹ From this dataset, we excluded countries that did not pass any COVID-19 measures. The rationale for the decision was that if a country has not passed any legislation in response to COVID-19, then the number of women in parliament could not have possibly resulted in gender-sensitive COVID-19 measures.

The second dataset used was the InterParliamentary Union’s dataset on the number and per cent of women in national parliaments, as of 6th February 2021. From this dataset, we excluded parliaments that did not include any women MPs or that lacked sufficient published information, namely, Sudan and Eritrea. This was because Sudan’s parliament was dissolved due to a coup d’etat in 2019, making women’s representation impossible to interpret. As for Eritrea, there was also no information on the number of women MPs in Eritrea in the Inter-Parliamentary Union database.

With these data, we ran a multiple linear regression using two independent variables: the number of women in national parliaments and the number of men in national parliaments. The number of men MPs was included in order to control for parliament size. The dependent variable was the number of gender-sensitive measures passed by the parliament. The regression yielded a significance coefficient of p<0.000001, meaning the result was highly significant.

The R-Squared was 0.44. This result can be interpreted to mean that the number of women in a parliament can account for 44% of the variation in the number of gender-sensitive measures when controlling for the number of men (with 56% of the variance accounted for by factors outside of our model). This level of correlation is generally considered to indicate a very high effect-size within the social sciences.²

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ UNDP Gender Tracker. https://data.undp.org/gendertracker/ ² University of Glasgow (2020), “Effect size”, https://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/~steve/best/effect.html

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The results above were obtained from data that did not meet one of the assumptions of a linear regression, which assumes that the data distribution is normal (a bell-curve). All three variables had a right-skewed distribution. In order to address this concern, we used a logarithmic transformation of the data to correct the distribution and ran a regression of log(10) of number of women MPs and log(10) of the number of men MPs versus log(10) of the number of gendersensitive measures.

This regression’s Normal Probability Plot was linear in appearance and the regression had a p<0.00001 and RSquared of 0.39. As these results were substantively close to the results of the original regression, we used the original regression in this analysis below for the sake of a more accessible and intuitive application to real-life phenomena.

This graph shows that the more women MPs are in a parliament, the greater the number of gender-sensitive COVID-1 policy measures, as the trendline has a positive slope. The equation above the trendline can be used to predict how many gender-sensitive measures a certain number of women MPs would yield. The R-squared value indicates that 35.5% of the variation in gender-sensitive measures can be explaining solely by looking at the number of women MPs. (This graph does not control for the number of men in a parliament. For a multiple linear regression see the analysis section below) ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ¹ Statistics Solutions, “Assumption of Linear Regression”, https://www.statisticssolutions.com/assumptions-of-linear-regression/

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Produced and Published by Make Every Woman Count Thank you to Giovanna de Miranda and Becky (Rivka) Zelikson for your wonderful work in putting this policy brief together.

Email: info@mewc.org Website: https://mewc.org Copyright ©2021 Make Every Woman Count All rights reserved. Redistribution of the material presented in this work is encouraged by the publisher, provided the original text is not altered, that the original source is properly and fully acknowledged and that the objective of redistribution is not for commercial gain. Please contact the publisher if you wish to reproduce, redistribute or transmit, in any form or by any means, this work or any portion thereof.

How to cite: Make Every Woman Count (2021). Women in Policy-Making: Why Every Woman Counts: The Correlation Between Women’s Participation in Politics and Gender-Sensitive COVID-19 Policies in Africa. https://mewc.org/index.php/tools/resources/11553-policy-brief-women-covid Make Every Woman Count (MEWC) is an African woman-led organization which serves as an information, research and training platform. Formed in 2010, the overarching goal of the organization is to ensure that African women and girls have access to information, tools and easy to use data to facilitate their equal and meaningful participation in policy dialogue with public and private institutions.

MEWC works towards documenting the status of women’s rights in Africa through focused research and dissemination of published works in the form of reports and policy briefs to support evidence-based advocacy to uphold women’s rights in pursuit of gender equality in Africa. The organization is guided, is anchored on and remains relevant to its organizational philosophy whose Vision, Mission, Goal and Core Values are as follows: Vision: A just, peaceful and inclusive world where women in all their diversity and men have equal rights, enjoy equal opportunity and participate equally.

Mission: To generate cutting edge research and easy to use data, knowledge and tools based on feminist principles to strengthen the work of women’s rights movements towards advancing women’s rights and gender equality in Africa.

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