The Proportion of Elected City Offices Held by Women Rose by Just 3% in 2022

(Bloomberg) -- The proportion of elected offices in U.S. cities held by women increased by 3% in 2022. Still, women make up less than a third of mayors, city council members and other local elected office holders following last year's municipal elections in New York, Boston and other large cities.

The percentage of women holding city office rose to 31.5% in 2022 from 30.5% a year ago, according to a new report from the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. The biggest gains were made in Delaware, Idaho and New York. The largest losses were in New Hampshire, which sank from the 25th-ranked spot to the 37th with just 28.2% of city offices filled by women.

“We'll take any change we can get or any improvement we can get, but it just shows you how slow the rate of change can be and that we need to do more to get more women running for local office,” said Jean Sinzdak, the associate director at the Center for American Women and Politics.

The data are based on female mayors or women who hold similar leadership roles, as well as legislative bodies including city councils, boards of alderman and commissions in incorporated municipalities with populations of 10,000 people or more.

Delaware rose 13 spots in state-by-state rankings from 2021 to 2022, with 31.3% of municipal offices held by women. Hawaii is the only state to reach parity with 50% of offices held by women and Alaska is close behind at 48%. Both are outliers given their small sample size: Honolulu is the only incorporated municipality in Hawaii that reached the 10,000 population threshold, while there are six such cities or towns in Alaska.

New York's cities had the third best improvement in gender balance in elective office last year, rising 8 spots in the rankings. But fewer than a third of elective offices in cities with populations bigger than 10,000 were held by women, the median among U.S. states. Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, Nevada and Washington are the only other states with more than 40% women in city offices. Mississippi, with just 19.7% of offices filled by women, is the state with the worst female representation.

Women who run for office tend to win races at the same rates as their male counterparts, but they often aren't asked or encouraged to run. They are also less likely than male peers to say they're qualified to run or to express interest in running for office. Allowing candidates to use campaign funds for child care expenses can also factor into pushing more female leaders into politics, CAWP data found.

“It's our duty to not only show up ourselves, but to look around and see who's not in the room, especially at the local level and go find those individuals and invite them, and encourage them to bring their experiences,” said Erin Loos Cutraro, founder and CEO of candidate incubator She Should Run.

She said that local officials can make a big impact given that roughly 500,000 of more than 520,000 elected offices are at the municipal level. Beyond a focus on women, she said it's important that a diverse mix of women are represented at every level of government.

“Now more than ever, with the pandemic and everything else that has gone on, it is just so important that we have governments that are reflective of the population,” she said.