Party Quotas and Gender Differences in Candidate Experience in Australia: 1987–2016.

This article examines the impact of party-level gender quotas on the political experience of candidates in Australia, focusing on the Australian Labor Party's (Labor) adoption of voluntary gender quotas starting in 1994 and the contrasting approach of the centre-right Coalition parties (Liberal Party of Australia and National Party), which have rejected quotas. Using data from the Australian Candidate Survey (ACS) spanning 1987 to 2016, the study finds that Labor's gender quotas helped close the experience gap between male and female candidates, particularly increasing elected experience among Labor women to levels comparable with men and Coalition women. However, quotas had little effect on male candidates' experience or on Coalition candidates of either gender, with Coalition women already possessing relatively high experience prior to Labor's quota adoption. The article attributes these outcomes to factors such as the professionalisation of politics, intra-party institutional structures, and women-centric networks that tend to promote female candidates resembling traditional male norms, thereby limiting broader diversification of candidate experience.