How descriptive over- and under-representation impacts citizens’ evaluations of decision-making across policy domains

We demonstrate that the impact of descriptive representation on citizens’ perceptions of democratic processes varies with levels of representation and the nature of the issue decided. In a survey experiment, a committee decides on three policies that disproportionately impact women, but vary in whether individuals perceive them as moral or conferring targeted benefits. Our findings show that citizens associate descriptive representation with fairness. However, perceptions of some decisions, e.g., abortion, strongly improve with women’s equal and over-representation. On other issues—those perceived as offering women a targeted benefit—women’s over-representation reduces perceptions of fairness. These findings highlight the importance of exploring the interaction between decision-making body composition and policy agenda when seeking to understand citizens’ views of democratic policymaking.