Evaluation and design of gender electoral quotas tend to focus on the aggregate impacts for female representation rather than the costs borne by individual women incorporated into electoral politics. In-depth qualitative research during the 2024 election in the city of Medan, Indonesia, revealed how candidate quotas demanded significant investments from women without a commensurate return in terms of political opportunity. The benefits of women’s political labour went to party elites and successful candidates, the majority of whom were men. A lens of inequitable incorporation considers the terms under which women are included in electoral politics: what they contribute, who these actions benefit, and what they receive in return. Gender electoral quotas have the potential to transform these terms of incorporation in ways that challenge or perpetuate male political dominance. We propose inequitable incorporation as a valuable analytical lens in quota scholarship and for better quota design.
Jakimow et al. (Mon,) studied this question.