Elections Reinforce, Not Remove, Women's Lower Ambition for Public Service

Why Women's Ambition for Public Service Matters

Political ambition shapes who enters public institutions and who becomes a policymaker. Matthew Miles asks whether the presence of elections—long considered a major barrier for women's political ambition—actually changes the gender gap in interest across different public-service paths, including elected office, bureaucracy, and the judiciary.

Surveys of Law Students, Federal Bureaucrats, and the Public

Miles draws on survey data from three distinct populations to compare ambition across career tracks rather than focusing only on electoral ambition. The samples include law students (as a pipeline into legal and judicial roles), federal bureaucrats (career public servants), and members of the general public. Ambition measures compare interest in elected office with interest in bureaucratic and judicial service, allowing tests of whether elections uniquely shape gendered patterns of ambition.

Key Findings

• The relationship between gender and ambition for elected office closely mirrors the relationship between gender and ambition for bureaucratic and judicial roles. Women are less likely than men to express ambition for these public-service careers across samples.
• Elections act as deterrents—gateways that can discourage women from pursuing certain paths—but the deterrent effect of elections is not unique. Other features of public-service careers produce similar gendered patterns of ambition.
• Rather than eliminating gender differences when elections are removed, non-electoral components of public service tend to duplicate and reinforce the same gendered ambition gap observed in electoral contexts.

What This Means for Research and Recruitment

Removing electoral selection alone is unlikely to eliminate gender gaps in who aspires to public-service careers. Policies and interventions aimed at diversifying public institutions should address the broader set of institutional and cultural factors that shape ambition across elected and non-elected pathways, not only electoral barriers.