By Arathi Menon/Mongabay
The gender of elected representatives can influence forest-cover growth, indicates a study that examines the causal impact of female elected representatives on forest conservation in India. The study concludes that electing a female MLA increased annual forest-cover growth by about six percentage points in constituencies reserved for historically marginalised communities such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The study titled Female legislators and forest conservation in India was published in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization early this year.
The authors adopted a regression discontinuity design (RDD) strategy, in which they compared forest-cover growth in constituencies where a female politician won with those where a male politician won in “close” mixed-gender electoral races.
“Closely contested state assembly elections reveal a clear pattern: where women narrowly win against male candidates, forest cover grows faster in subsequent years,” write the authors in a related article published in The Policy Edge. “In extremely close mixed-gender elections, the outcome is often shaped by small, contingent factors rather than systematic differences between constituencies. Comparing such razor-thin contests allows a credible estimate of the effect of legislator gender,” the article elaborates.
The researchers combined forest-cover data from 2000–2014, state assembly election data, information on the gender of the winning candidate, and details on whether the constituency was reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs) or Scheduled Tribes (STs) to identify a pattern and arrive at this conclusion.
The researchers explore several possible explanations for the outcome through existing literature. They suggest that, in many cases where women are disproportionately affected by climate change impacts, women may have greater concern for environmental protection and climate change, while women from marginalised communities may have greater awareness of climate vulnerability. Moreover, since SC/ST-reserved constituencies already have legal and institutional provisions relating to forest rights and environmental governance, female representation may interact with these existing structures in ways that favour conservation.
“Individuals from marginalised communities often face the additional constraint of limited resources to adapt to environmental degradation and climate shocks. Female politicians from these communities may therefore be particularly aware of the challenges faced by women and girls in their constituencies. This awareness can translate into stronger emphasis on environmental conservation in their political priorities,” the authors write.
Age too could play a role, considering that the female legislators studied tended to be younger than male legislators, and the forest-cover effect over the electoral term was particularly apparent among younger women.
This article is republished from Mongabay under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here.