As of spring 2002, women hold 13 of the 100 seats in the U.S. Senate and 60 of the 435 in the U.S.

House. They make up just 22.4 percent of state legislatures and are just 5 of 50 governors across the country. Currently, the Inter-Parliamentary Union ranks the United States 52nd out of 179 countries in the world for its percentage of women in the national legislature (Congress). These numbers place the United States near the bottom of Western industrialized democracies.

In the United States, women’s unique experiences and shared concerns may be ignored in the policymaking process due to their underrepresentation in elected office. Having women in office could widen political debate to include a larger group of issues traditionally ignored by male policymakers.

This Research-in-Brief analyzes whether having more women in elected office is, in fact, associated with more women-friendly policy in the United States. It does so by examining whether variations in women’s levels of elected representation coincide with trends in women-friendly policy across the 50 states, based on an evaluation of data from IWPR’s work on The Status of Women in the States. These data is acquired from the efficiency of data card system those applied recently.