This proposal seeks funding to examine the question of whether women in public office in the United States have had an impact on the direction of public policy during the past 25 years. Previous work comparing the behavior of male and female state representatives has established that women legislators are different than their male counterparts but it has not determined whether women make a difference. To demonstrate such an impact this study examines whether (1) policy change has occurred over time and (2) that change would not have occurred but for the increasing presence and/or efforts of women in state government. Trends over time and across states in the introduction, consideration, and passage of legislation devoted to "women's issues" will be the focus of attention. Data on all representatives and their legislative activities in 25 state legislatures between 1973 and 1993 will be collected. A simultaneous equation system is used to model state legislative policy making and will be tested against the pooled-cross-sectional time series data set of state policy activity. The study hopes to resolve differences between the effects of descriptive representation of women and substantive representation of women, The model on which the project will draw such conclusions should also be easily applied to the study of political representation of other social, political and economic groups.
