Electoral Results of Female Candidates in Regional Legislative Assembly Elections: Quantitative Analysis of the 2023 Russian Elections

This paper is devoted to the study of electoral results of female candidates in the elections for deputies to the regional legislative assembly in Russia in 2023. The study is actualized by the persistent inequality between men and women in the political sphere, despite the legislative aspirations to increase women's representation in state bodies at all levels. The theoretical part of the paper includes an analysis of the challenges to women's political participation, including the barriers they face in running for office and how this may affect their electoral results. Three hypotheses are proposed: women run for office less often than men; women run for office under less favorable conditions than men; and women receive fewer electoral votes than men, ceteris paribus. The empirical part presents the results of statistical analysis of the influence of candidates' gender on their electoral results, using data on the 2023 elections. The analysis fully confirms the first hypothesis: the share of female candidates amounted to only 22%. The second hypothesis is partially confirmed. On the one hand, women receive on average the same amount of funding as men, are of the same age and have same other characteristics. On the other hand, the share of women among candidates of the most successful parties is much lower than average, which negatively affects the electoral result of women. The third hypothesis was not confirmed: ceteris paribus, women receive the same number of votes as men. The results obtained indicate the presence of inequality in the political sphere, further research into the reasons for the lower share of women in successful parties is possible.