Representative Bureaucracy and the Policy Environment: Gender Representation in Forty‐Four Countries †

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seung‐Ho An ◽  
Miyeon Song ◽  
Kenneth J. Meier
Keyword(s):  
Representative Bureaucracy ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
Policy Environment

“Representative bureaucracy as a leadership issue: the Canadian case”

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-410
Author(s):  
Tim A. Mau
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Representative Bureaucracy ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
Administrative Leadership ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Sector Leadership ◽  
Federal Public Service

PurposeThe public administration literature on representative bureaucracy identifies several advantages from having a diverse public service workforce, but it has not explicitly focused on leadership. For its part, the public sector leadership literature has largely ignored the issue of gender. The purpose of this paper is to rectify these limitations by advancing the argument that having a representative bureaucracy is fundamentally a leadership issue. Moreover, it assesses the extent to which representativeness has been achieved in the Canadian federal public service.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins with a discussion of the importance of a representative bureaucracy for democratic governance. In the next section, the case is made that representativeness is fundamentally intertwined with the concept of administrative leadership. Then, the article provides an interpretive case study analysis of the federal public service in Canada, which is the global leader in terms of women's representation in public service leadership positions.FindingsThe initial breakthrough for gender representation in the Canadian federal public service was 1995. From that point onward, the proportion of women in the core public administration exceeded workforce availability. However, women continued to be modestly under-represented among the senior leadership cadre throughout the early 2000s. The watershed moment for gender representation in the federal public service was 2011 when the number of women in the executive group exceeded workforce availability for the first time. Significant progress toward greater representativeness in the other target groups has also been made but ongoing vigilance is required.Research limitations/implicationsThe study only determines the passive representation of women in the Public Service of Canada and is not able to comment on the extent to which women are substantively represented in federal policy outcomes.Originality/valueThe paper traces the Canadian federal government's progress toward achieving gender representation over time, while commenting on the extent to which the public service reflects broader diversity. In doing so, it explicitly links representation to leadership, which the existing literature fails to do, by arguing that effective administrative leadership is contingent upon having a diverse public service. Moreover, it highlights the importance of gender for public sector leadership, which hitherto has been neglected.

Gender Representation and Student Performance: Representative Bureaucracy Goes to Korea

2016 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 346-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miyeon Song
Keyword(s):  
Student Performance ◽  
Asian Country ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Bureaucracy ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Organizational Contexts ◽  
Female Teachers ◽  
Managerial Level ◽  
The Relationship

The literature on representative bureaucracy argues that bureaucrats who reflect the diversity of citizens are more likely to be responsive to the public. Although substantial research has supported the claim, most studies are conducted in Western countries such as the United States, and the evidence from other contexts is extremely limited. This raises two important questions: Does the relationship remain valid in a centralized Asian country? If so, under what conditions does representative bureaucracy matter more? This study investigates these questions by using a data set on secondary education in South Korea. Findings suggest that female students perform better when they are taught by female teachers, which strengthens the external validity of the theory. The positive link between female teachers and female student performance is greater when teachers have more discretion and interact more with each other. However, value consensus weakens the relationship between gender representation and student performance. Clientele diversity matters in gender representation at the managerial level, but sector differences are not statistically supported. These findings illustrate the need to take both national and organizational contexts seriously in representative bureaucracy theory.

Gender, Representation, Experience: The Case of Village Performers in Java

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
FELICIA HUGHES-FREELAND
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
New Order ◽  
Gender Ideologies ◽  
Gender Representations ◽  
Women’S Experiences ◽  
Performance Culture ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
Points Of View

This article explores how gender representations are deployed in anthropological analysis with reference to female performers (ledhek) in rural Java during the last decades of Suharto's New Order Indonesia (1966–1998). 1 It shows how the negative ascriptions given to ledheks were consistent with state promulgated gender ideologies in Indonesia, and explores the women's experiences in performances and everyday life. This different standpoint allows us to understand their dancing from the performers’ points of view, rather than from that of official state endorsed ideas of acceptable performance culture.

Gender Impact on the Enterprise Performance

2020 ◽  
pp. 54-62
Author(s):  
Oleksii V. Lyulyov ◽  
Oleksandra I. Karintseva ◽  
Andrii V. Yevdokymov ◽  
Hanna S. Ponomarova ◽  
Oleksandr O. Ivanov
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Gender Representation ◽  
Board Members ◽  
Enterprise Performance ◽  
World Economic Forum ◽  
Return On Assets ◽  
The World ◽  
World Economic ◽  
The Impact

The article describes the situation of gender equality in Ukraine and in the world during the last 5 years, identifies the leading countries in moving towards gender equality in various fields of life by analyzing the indicators of the Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum. These indicators include: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, Political Empowerment, which are the part of a single index that determines the position of countries in the overall ranking. Based on the results of this analysis, Ukraine has improved value of gender equality index, although in the overall ranking of countries Ukraine has lost its position and dropped 11 ranks lower than in 2014. This means that, among all the countries surveyed by the World Economic Forum, there are countries that are moving much faster towards gender equality than Ukraine. In addition, the article includes the investigation of the gender representation among the board members of 5 enterprises of Ukraine for 2014-2017, which represent the leading sectors of the Ukrainian economy. The dynamics of changes in the level of performance of these enterprises using the return on assets (ROA) indicator is analyzed, the relationship between the leadership of the enterprises and the value of the ROA indicator is graphically presented. The obtained results do not give a clear answer about the gender impact on the enterprise performance. The reason for this is a number of factors, such as: insufficient statistical sampling of enterprises; the selected performance indicator of enterprise activities does not fully reflect the impact of the gender factor on enterprise activities; the methodology used in the work needs improvements, or it is necessary to choose a totally new approach to the analysis of the investigated issue under study. Gender representation among board members and its impact on enterprise performance should be investigated further. Key words: gender, gender equality, enterprise board members, return on assets.

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