Presence of women in local government in Spain. Historical and territorial perspectives (1979- 2019)

Abstract

The aim of this study is, firstly, to assess women’s presence in local government in Spain from 1979 to 2019, a period which coincides with forty years of democracy and has witnessed more than ten elections, and secondly, to determine whether the gender gap has narrowed. In particular, we wanted to identify any possible changes produced as a result of the entry into force of Organic Law 3/2007 on the Effective Equality of Women and Men. Our results show that women’s presence in town councils has increased, but that there are marked differences in internal trends. Besides the historical viewpoint, this research also includes a territorial perspective. Thus, in order to explain the territorial distribution of the results, Moran’s Index of Spatial Autocorrelation was used, analysing data on the presence of female mayors and councillors in more than 8,100 town councils. The variables considered were: territorial proximity, measured using the univariate Moran’s I; degree of rurality, defined according to municipality size; and the presence of women for the first time. For the latter two variables, we conducted a bivariate analysis (bivariate Moran’s I), correlating them with the presence of female mayors and the percentage of female councillors as dependent variables. We found few territorial patterns; instead, our results indicate a high degree of randomness, which could be attributed to the diverse nature of municipalities in the country.