Research

Women in State Government: Historical Overview and Current Trends (2004, 11 pages)
This study by CAWP senior scholar Susan J. Carroll raises issues concerning the continued growth of women's participation in state government. As the study states, "[w]omen have significantly increased their numbers among state government officials over the past several decades. However, despite a recent increase in the number of women governors, women’s progress, especially at the statewide elective and state legislative levels, has slowed....Findings such as these suggest that the future for women in state government will depend, at least in part, upon the strength of efforts to actively recruit women for both elected and appointed positions." This article is reprinted with permission from The Book of the States, 2004, published by The Council of State Governments, Lexington, KY.  

Gender and Policymaking: Studies of Women in Office (1991, 133 pages)
This report is a collection of eleven essays written by scholars who received grants from CAWP to investigate the impact of elected and appointed women officeholders at the local, state, and national levels. One essay addresses women in the U.S. Departments of State and Defense.  

Getting Women Appointed: New Jersey's Bipartisan Coalition
(1984, 20 pages)
This monograph documents the formation and activities in 1981 and 1982 of New Jersey's Bipartisan Coalition for Women's Appointments, an ad hoc group organized after CAWP convened a meeting of politically active women to discuss how to get more women appointed to state-level posts.

Women Appointed to the Carter Administration: A Comparison with Men (1983, 88 pages)
This first-ever profile of women who have held high-level appointive offices at the federal level analyzes data about all the women and a sample of the men who served in high-level appointed positions under President Jimmy Carter. Women who served in selected positions on the president's and vice-president's staffs are also included.

Women Appointed to State Government: A Comparison with All State Appointees (1983, 119 pages)
This study examines appointed state cabinet-level officials. Based on data collected through telephone surveys, it compares the first-ever national profile of women in state cabinets to a profile of a sample of all appointees.

Women in Public Office, First and Second Editions, and Profile of Women Holding Office I and II (1976: 37 pages; 1978: 71 pages)
CAWP produced the first-ever directories of U.S. elected women, who were surveyed in 1975 and 1977. The directories included names, addresses and background data. Each directory included a statistical essay, also published as stand-alone documents, examining the numbers, personal characteristics, political backgrounds, issue orientations, and ambitions of women in federal, state, county, and local government as reported in the surveys. Inclusion of a comparative sample of male officials and of women former office-holders highlight the 1978 report. The directories are not reproduced here, but reference copies are available at CAWP.

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Fact sheets about women in federal executive office available here.

Fact sheets about women in statewide elected executive office available here.