In this blog Professor Hilde Coffé and Dr Kaitlin Senk share insights from their research into the financial barriers faced by women candidates.
Despite an increase in women’s descriptive representation in UK politics over the past few decades, significant gaps remain. Women continue to be underrepresented across all levels of political office. This disparity has crucial implications, affecting not only policy outcomes but also citizens’ trust in democratic institutions. One often-cited barrier to women’s political representation is the lack of financial resources. How do campaign spending patterns and donations differ between men and women candidates in the UK, and what impact do these financial factors have on electoral success? Additionally, we will examine variations across different political parties. To answer these questions, we analysed Electoral Commission data from the 2019 parliamentary elections.
Our findings reveal that men and women candidates, across political parties, are more likely to win their elections as they spend more of their campaign funding limits and receive higher levels of campaign donations. Additionally, campaign spending and donations are particularly important for candidates running in vulnerable districts and those who are running for the first time, where campaign spending goes much further for securing electoral victories when compared to candidates in secure districts or for incumbents. However, this research highlights differences in access that might disadvantage Conservative women, in particular. Specifically, Conservative women tend to raise fewer campaign donations when compared to Conservative men and they also spend a smaller portion of their campaign funds when running for office. Additionally, Conservative women are more likely to be placed in more vulnerable electoral districts and they also tend to be more likely to be political newcomers. All of these factors may explain why Conservative women were less likely to win their elections in 2019 when compared to Conservative men.
Although these gender differences do not exist across other political parties, it may still be important for political parties and civil society organizations to target campaign funding efforts to women candidates, especially those running in vulnerable seats and those running for Parliament for the first time. The importance of campaign funding and financial support for candidates in battleground districts was echoed by participants in our recent roundtable event. Strategically targeting funding efforts to new women candidates and those running in more competitive districts may help these candidates run more electorally competitive campaigns that can help them overcome the challenges they face as political newcomers or candidates running in challenging districts.