Seminario IECON | Women's representation and the governance of the commons

Roughly half of the world's land is held collectively by indigenous and local communities. Large-scale causal evidence linking these institutions to land management is scarce, and even less so is evidence on the implications of women's inclusion in them. We study Mexico's agrarian communities, where a December 2016 reform imposed a binding gender quota on candidate lists for the elected committees that govern collective land. We exploit the staggered timing of community elections and find that women's representation rises 6.0 pp at the first postreform election and 7.2 pp by the third year, against a sample mean of 18.9%. However, the gains are inversely related to rank — +16 pp for the Oversight Committee's second secretary, +0.3 pp for the Commissariat president, the position with the most power. Land reallocates from agriculture to natural ecosystems, and the gain is specifically forest cover. However, the state interface closes for elected women. Applications to federal support programs fall imprecisely. In contrast, allocations fall sharply and steadily, from −16% of the mean at the first post-reform election to −36% by the third year: demand holds up, supply does not, and inclusion is not rewarded with resources. Our findings reveal that candidate quotas open access but do not dismantle internal hierarchies, and the current delivery system works against the communities that comply.